Everything that surrounds the series of Amazon Prime Video is embroiled in controversy. Especially what has to do with the Writers of The Rings of Power. The series inspired —lightly in the universe of J.R.R. Tolkien— has had to face several controversies that dynamit the series from within.
The latest news is that the main showrunners of the series J.D. Payne Y Patrick McKay They have been removed from the project for the following seasons, let’s remember that 5 installments have been signed.
Although the dismissal has not been made public and possibly will not be, some sources suggest that the scriptwriters will be relegated within the scriptwriters’ room to a testimonial contribution.
The amazon series It is the most expensive in history. Of course, they have not skimped on means and production design with a magnificent recreation of settings and special effects that matched the claims of a series that had the difficult challenge of transferring the imaginary and the worlds devised by Tolkien to television.
Now, it seems that Amazon made the mistake of worrying only about the form and not about the substance. A kind of stagehand subterfuge at the service of the visual, which completely forgot about the script and the characters.
The first problem the series had was the acquisition of the rights to some of Tolkien’s stories and appendices, owned by Middle Earth Entreprises. Acquired rights only gave the possibility of telling a series of facts and characters, but without being able to narrate how those events were reached.
That is, they had rights to talk about the city of numenor, but it could not be told how said city fell or the events that happened there. You could only use those things that were named in the appendices schematically.
Another example: since at no time was the race of the hobbits, the series could not mention them, although it has shown us a race of hairy beings, clearly hobbits, but which they have renamed as hairy. By the way, protagonists of a bland plot arc, which even bothered.
You can read our review of the series at this link: Podcast on The Rings of Power.
For the project, the aforementioned scriptwriters were chosen, two writers without any experience in the world of series or cinema, which translates into a major nonsense.
It is true that one could not narrate the stories of Galadriel one of which they had no rights, but a warlike, unsympathetic and bitter character has been built that has nothing to do with the personality that an elf is supposed to have, much less the Galadriel that we do know from the books. So with everything.
Apparently the scriptwriters’ room was a veritable cauldron, in which the writer himself Jeff Bezos tried to reach out. A lot of pressure for a group of inexperienced writers.
The decision has been clear: if we do not have all the rights to Tolkien’s work and we have to fill many narrative gaps with our own harvest, we will have to invent many things, and, as we invent, we are going to invent absolutely everything, contributing to the canon officer a full blown kick.
The script is crazy on many occasions. An example: the queen of Numenor is seriously injured and goes blind. She asks one of her trusted men that she has discovered the injury, please not to tell anyone so as not to lose authority. Good. But in the next scene the queen appears with a blindfold on her leading all her troops, so everyone realizes that she has lost sight of her. So, why the hell does she ask her in the scene before that she not tell anyone her secret. As I said, a nonsense.
It is true that there are some episodes that work very well and some characters that have been taken out of the sleeve are quite interesting, but the construction of the script and of the characters is anything but solid, showing an absolute lack of affection for the canon, despite to get some winks with a shoehorn such as certain elven expressions or words, some brooches from the most important houses and other wardrobe details or several Easter eggs for the most coffee-loving.
The scriptwriters were hired for being geeks of the saga, for managing well when speaking some languages like the elven ones, but little else, that’s not enough. The money has been invested in the visual, and the most important thing has been left aside: the narration and the plots.
Too bad, and a missed opportunity to translate Tolkien’s spirit into a TV series. Rumors say that the new showrunners will give a major twist to the script for the next few seasons, but the damage has already been done.
the rings of power it has lost the great battle of the platforms, falling resoundingly before other series such as The House of the Dragon that does demonstrate the packaging and know-how of HBO.
Some voices say that even Bezos has considered re-recording the first season in its entirety and starting from scratch, rumors that only highlight the great disaster that has been the The Rings of Power series.