As someone who is not familiar with any of Middle-earth lore in terms of the books - I haven't read the trilogy, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales which covers all the movies and the series - I will be honest: At best it's above average and at worst painfully cringe. For the most part it straddles between those two. Those who are familiar with the lore obviously will be much more critical of the series.
I won't give it a 1 star because I think that's underserving from someone who isn't educated on the lore so I realize I may be more generous in my criticisms. A five star? Definitely not. Not even a 4 star. I probably give it solid three if I'm generous, but a 2.5 will suffice.
Positives
Some shots are really nice, but they're few and far between. The show has some highlights but outside of these the show runs on mediocrity in all aspects of a tv production where, as mentioned, it occasionally dips into cringe.
Markella Kavenagh, who plays Nori Brandyfoot, is the standout out of all the actors involved. Genuine sincerity in her line delivery, proper facial expressions that match her emotions and lines, decent physical acting too. She gives Nori that naive yet brave demeanor. Nori is probably the best written character, but that is a low bar to accomplish given the rest of the characters are one-dimensional or underdeveloped.
The only issue I have with Nori as a character is that her character jumps too soon into accepting The Stranger as some benign entity, believing it's her mission to help him all in under a day because "there must be something out there." Not even Bilbo Baggins was this eager (or naive) to engage in something completely unknown to him.
It was good acting by Daniel Weyman who plays The Stranger alongside Markella. These two are paired together in their storyline throughout S1 and they work well off of one another. Weyman barely has any lines, and his character is truly enigmatic. It's a role that requires more physical and facial acting where words are absent. The lines he does have he delivers them fine enough. The audience can tell he is a man who is slowly regaining his memory and therefore his purpose.
There are some lovely cinematography going on. In episode 1 when the Harfoots are introduced, there is a sweeping shot of a grain field in which two hunters are walking back to the camp. Unknowingly to them they are walking near the Harfoots' village.
Another beautiful shot was when Nori and Poppy Proudfellow, played by Megan Richards, were pushing The Stranger up a hill to get him to the Harfoot village. In their quarreling, Nori and Poppy let go of the wheel barrel in which The Stranger is in. Gravity enters the picture and slowly brings the wheel barrel down the path that they just climbed up. Both Harfoots scramble to reach him. Here the director focused on giving a portrait view of the scene showing the two Harfoots, The Stranger, their surroundings and the bluish-purple night sky. The shot entirely lovely and brought me back to the scene when Gandalf shares a smoke with Bilbo on his birthday in the very first Lord of the Rings movie.
When Galadriel was sailing to Valinor for eternal life as a reward was also well shot (for the most part - I had an issue when the camera did a close-up on Galadriel's face where it appeared she was adjusting her eyes due to the brightness; that just annoyed me). Great lighting (maybe too much?), sound and set pieces.
Some set designs were quite nice, but if you put these in Game of Thrones, Spartacus or Rome I wouldn't known any better.
The makeup and costume designs of the orcs are the absolute best in the show; they'd fit right in with their film orc counterparts. Some shots of Galadriel were done well too. The one that stands out was when she was in full armor when boarding ship with the Numenoreans - I think that costume design was great.
And Durin. Besides Nori, I do enjoy his character. Some don't but I suppose that's because they are familiar with the lore where I am not. Owian Arthur who plays Prince Durin IV is great. As with Markella, he has great line delivery and his facial expressions and physically lines up well with his character in the stations he find himself in. Put him right alongside the other actors who played drwarves in The Hobbit and LOTR and he wouldn't miss a step.
I think there are a few more, but that's what I remember throughout the first five episodes.
The opening title credits of RoP I'm starting to warmup to (nice visuals and music with was written by Howard Shore).
Cons
I will absolutely agree with this one: the writing, in general, is poor. Half the time it's not even mediocre - I give the mediocrity to the pacing. It's poor on what the writers and producers are trying to achieve which is their own PG-13 epic fantasy akin to GoT. It just doesn't pass muster. The dialogue, when the actors go on monologues that give exposition is at times cringe, trying to grasp Peter Jackson like tonality in verbal form. It doesn't work. There's an attempt, but it just doesn't work.
What producers agreed to cast Benjamin Walker as High King Gil-galad? I wonder what was said between his agent and Amazon Prime when casting was being finalized. People will say he was given bad direction and that his character was poorly written. Maybe to both. I say it's just, largely, a miscast. Him trying to be an elf with nobility comes across as a caricature. "This-is-my-idea-of-a-king-elf-who-is-concerned-for-his-people."
The portrayal of Galadriel played by Morfydd Clark is a poor one. Some don't want to blame the actress, but it's clear - to me - that she's playing this character is a brazen way that makes little sense to me from what I've experienced with how Galadriel is in LOTR trilogy. Granted this Galadriel is a young Galadriel, her portrayed makes it hard to believe that a strong-headed, arrogant elf like Clark's turns into a controlled, tempered wise elf as portrayed by Cate Blanchett.
There's a pattern to Clark's line delivery. When she's saying lines that are meant to portray great sadness, stress or urgency her voice sorta shakes. This was fine at first but it becomes annoying after a while. She is beautiful - both with makeup and without.
There are other things I have issues with with how Galadriel was written, like how she became a martial art master with a sword when teaching inexperienced soldiers how to fight properly when facing orcs. Or the writers wanting her to be obsessed with finding Sauron because she's addicted to war and battle. She's just horribly written and so far rather one-dimensional.
CGI is nothing special and it was shown when the series entered the island of Numenor. The sails on the ships? 1 billion dollar budget. 1 billion dollars. When it dwells on the island the series becomes a generic fantasy series set in a time that has a weird mixture of Rome-ish and GoT feel. Again, I'm coming at this as someone who hasn't read any of the books in which Middle-earth is explained so I have zero clue if set pieces and costumes should look the way they do here.
The portrayal of the village people and the interactions between the Numernoreans and Halbrand were cringe. "Drinks for everyone!" as ancient string instruments are played in the background.
The writing also just doesn't give enough exposition on what's happening. I'll admit I watched intently but I'm still slightly confused on what exactly is going on. With this, the characters' reactions and reasoning due to the bad writing all adds to the confusion. For example, if Galadriel and the Numernoreans are going to sail to the Southlands to battle Sauron, why are they so content with sailing with inexperienced soldiers - with only three ships that fit 100 men? I'm totally ignorant on anything relating to t military tactics, but given this seems like a major event that will forever change Galadriel psychologically and emotionally, and Middle-earth's future, you'd think they would want a larger army and be excessively concerned about soldier preparation and battle tactics before they set sail.
The supposed romance between Arondir and Bronwyn just screams "we, the producers, needed a romance so here it is." It adds nothing to the overall series. The actors who play said characters are not given any favors in the script - because they're so thinly written - besides them being in this production to add to their actor brand.
Do I care if Arondir is a non-white elf since it's a rarity in Middle-earth to be a non-white elf or so I'm told? I don't really care because his character is so badly written that the actor's race is not even a concern to me. That enough is a turn off because without solid writing it really doesn't matter if the character has an arm sticking out of his side just for shits and giggles.
Conclusion
It is as bad as the LOTR die-hards make it out to be? I can only empathize with them. If I knew the lore inside and out like they do, loved every word of Tolkien, I'd probably be much more critical.
I don't appreciate LOTR normies like myself mocking them, calling them "extreme textual fundamentalists" if they object to the inconsistent racial casting, or when people accuse them of taking it too seriously with them kneeling at "the alter of a 100 year old book." Those types of words say more about those who do the mocking than those who are mocked.
But what are my thoughts about the remaining three episodes? I don't see the Rings of Power getting anywhere higher than a 3 from me depending how the last three episodes are played out - it's too small of a sample size to redeem the writing from previous episodes - and I don't have great hopes that the quality will improve. Maybe season 2 will be better.
I won't give it a final rating, but my current rating will be a solid 2.5 out of 5.
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