Needless to say, The Rings of Power is a very, very loose adaptation of the source material. Like, “introducing a love story between Dracula and Mina” loose. But I emphatically do not think it’s “doing a version of Carrie where Carrie doesn’t kill anyone with her mind” loose. Rings is working with material that wouldn’t be particularly adaptable if it weren’t handled with a lot of creativity and invention. All the rebellious orcs, the Dwarf stuff, the Galadriel/Sauron will-they-or-won’t-they business, wizards making power plays, compressing centuries of events into a few years — it’s all brand new.
But novelty in an adaptation, change in an adaptation, is value neutral, neither automatically good nor automatically bad. Payne and McKay have chosen to change The Lord of the Rings‘ Second Age into a sword and sorcery saga, a frankly insane idea I can’t help but admire, and one which at the very least delivers one gonzo moment after another. Your mileage may vary, as trite as that is to say. For me, this brand of go-for-broke fantasy filmmaking is a road that goes ever on and on.
Tags: decider, fantasy, the lord of the rings: the rings of power, TV, TV reviews