I Watch TV: The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power

RING RING  RING RING

The Rings Of Power

Galadriel is on a roaring rampage of revenge. Sometime in the wars against Morgoth her brother was killed and she’s not going to stop until every last one of the minions of evil are dead. And she’s an elf, immortal, so she’s not going to stop, not even when her hunt takes her to the very edge of the world. The elf king finally retires her, sending her back to Valinor, but at the last she jumps overboard, starting her adventures.

One of her adventures takes her to Númenór, the western island kingdom, inhabited by men who previously allied with the elves, but now have cut off contact. She convinces them the threat is real and to send a fleet into the Southlands, having, entirely by chance, encountered the king of the Southlands.

In the Southlands, occupied by elves, disarmed villages of men are encountering odd things. Just as peace is declared and the elves withdraw, mysterious holes and tunnels appear. Bronwyn and her son Theo are drawn inevitably into this mess, as is the elf Arondir, whose relationship with Bronwyn may be too close.

Meanwhile Elrond, herald of the elf king, is sent to work with Lord Celebrimbor, the great elf smith. He needs a new tower-workshop built and in a hurry. There’s a problem with the elves, and with their great tree. Perhaps a fatal one, though they don't tell Elrond immediately. Elrond decides to ask for help from his dwarf friend Prince Durin. But the dwarves are touchy and have their own concerns and both Elrond and Durin will have their loyalties tested.

And somewhere else the nomadic Harfoots (not yet Hobbits for legal reasons) are following their usual paths, though again strange things are happening. Then a star falls from the sky and is revealed to be a stranger (called The Stranger) and a Harfoot girl adopts him and discovers he is looking for a constellation, and has magic powers. But she might not be the only one interested in him.

George R R Tolkien's Jacques Costeau cinema

That’s not what you’re interested in. The Amazon spent 10 zillion dollars on this and you want to know, is it any good? Is George RR Tolkien rolling in his grave (in a movie theatre in New Mexico)? What did I hate about it?

Well it’s fine. No, it’s good even, and I don’t know what my fictional fantasy author thinks, and who cares? And what did I hate? Okay, some nitpicks to begin, then some more important stuff.

Hobbits have family names because they are 19^th century rural stereotypes, and people like them (including my immediate ancestors) have been given surnames over the last couple of centuries (for tax purposes). Other people in Lord Of The Rings et al have patronyms, or mononyms, or bynames or even pseduonyms, but not family names because they’re medieval or anglo-saxon and those people didn’t. It makes no sense for the nomadic, un-taxed Harfoots to have surnames.

I like it when things are well lit, so I don’t actually have a problem with enormous wall-length flames in dwarf chambers etc. But the Númenórian camp is using it’s entire supply of candles on the tent of one injured guy, no matter how important, when it’s overwhelmed by refugees. Seems a bit odd. And the camp itself is walled by cloth set in frames which is a bit fragile for a military encampment.

For that matter sailing into Númenór through a narrow rock passage – well let’s just say I think you’d want to furl those sails and proceed under oars. Perhaps get a tow from a galley.

More importantly, and less Tolkeinesque, the show likes to keep secrets and puzzles. One of them, or rather two they inter-twine, works pretty well, but others are just a bit of modern TV reflex. Everybody keeps secrets from Elrond, then he works out there’s a secret and they tell him. It's a bit formulaic. Tolkien, working from an older formula, mostly keeps one secret at a time, generally telling you upfront what a guy's deal is when they turn up.

Saltwater will put out fires, just saying

The elves in general talk like… well they talk as though someone has written a basic script and then gone through with a thesaurus looking for mythical and portentous words. I mean that’s not fair, they’re full sentences and phrases, but sometimes they just don’t work. “You cannot drink saltwater,” says Galadriel to Theo, meaning that revenge is bad, except for her multi-century roaring rampage of revenge obviously. Before seeking revenge dig two graves, unless you’re a wuxia elf warrior like me, in which case dig about a hundred, maybe two hundred, better make it three hundred to be sure.

But Galadriel makes us believe, because if they’d saved even one penny on making the world come alive or getting an actor who did not commit to the role as much then it would fall apart. Galadriel talks nonsense but people do talk nonsense and she has complete conviction and brings people into her poorly articulated madness. Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for England and, well, following people talking portentous nonsense into poorly thought out plans is definitely a thing we do.

The fights, most are okay. But there were a couple that stood out, small, intimate ones. When Galadriel is on the battlefield orcs are scarecrows to be cut down, obstacles to smash to the ground. Compare instead when Bronwyn and Theo, a normal woman and young man, encounter one inside a house. Where a six foot, armoured creature is a monster to flee, a danger to stay out of reach of. Fighting it is a desperate, last ditch resort, requiring scrabbling, dangerous effort. Imagine if… an orc could be frightening?

But enough of that. Tolkien knew that it wasn’t the fight that was important, or rather it wasn’t the fight that was most important. What was important was choice, and temptation, and duty. Is it a hobbit’s duty to take the ring to Mordor? (The Rings Of Power is cowardly in only overpronouncing the proper nouns that come from Tolkien, every word should have an extra syllable). Gondor has got along without a king, is it really Aragorn’s duty to take up the crown?

SPOILERS for The Lord Of The Rings btw.

Galadriel faces temptation, yet is it actually temptation? Is it in fact temptation reversed, efforts to lead her away from her roaring rampage of revenge? She faces the truth of the origin of the orcs, and the elves who were their progenitors, and in return threatens torture and genocide. Which is forestalled by disaster and defeat. In any case, any moral choice she had was made in the prologue when she decided that she would avenge her brother no matter the cost.

Slightly more interesting is Elrond’s time with his Dwarf pal Durin (IV). Initially Durin is annoyed that Elrond vanished for twenty years – nothing for an elf but in between Durin has got married, had two children and discovered a wonder-metal, mith-ray-il. Except he has to keep that secret and when Elrond stumbles on it he swears to keep it secret too. But then it turns out the elf lords know about it already and he has to choose whether to break his oath, or to keep secret something they know about. It’s stupid, which is sad as the cross-cultural friendship between Elrond and Durin is very good, with Elrond always one step ahead and Durin willing to be led. And Durin finds himself in conflict with his father Durin (III), in some powerful scenes.

Harfoots on the move for tax purposes

The Harfoots, twee, common and rustic in a very deliberate manner, may be the highlight. This could be considered a sad judgement for a show with CGI volcanos, battles, great cities, ships etc, but this is part of the show too and it's been put it in with open-eyed intention. That the smallest, most trivial and personal of the scenes might be the best and most important is something Tolkien could have got on board with. We are forced reluctantly to the conclusion that the people making it have some idea of what they’re doing.

The Harfoots are a tight-knit community who work for the common good, and who  also leave behind anyone who can’t keep up in their migrations. The show papers over the contradictions, after all keeping up is a community standard, good for all. But it does mean that when Nori meets a stranger (The Stranger) she has to ask herself if it is her duty to help him. This iterates several times as he turns out to be useful and powerful, and cursed and dangerous, bringing disaster and then providing solutions.

The biggest flaw, if we must get right down to it, is that I’m no longer a tween reading The Lord Of The Rings for the first time, nor am I in my twenties watching Peter Jackson’s film version. So be it, I have to accept the show for what it is. The second flaw might be that it’s made in 2022 and a show designed for a wide audience can’t tackle sin and duty and morality in the way that Tolkien did. Except maybe it could, as the Dwarf and Harfoot sections try, and the show simply wasn’t bold enough?

The third flaw is it really needed another pass at the dialogue, especially when our elves are being mythic and portentous. Gnomic obscurity cut with slightly stilted clarity doesn’t do it for me.

tl;dr

So we begin the show with a spectacular montage to learn who Galadriel is and what her deal is. And at the end we have two truly great magical sequences, interlinked in their reveals. More of the latter and less of the former if I had a preference. It’s not that the battle scenes are bad, but they feel strangely generic, and of this time. While the magic, and the secrets revealed, and their effects on the characters, that’s something only this show could have done. Which is more interesting, and in the end, more important than the money spent or if it’s true to Tolkien.

Watch This: Superior fantasy action with a few clever moments of magic
Don’t Watch This: It’s just elves being arseholes