Rings of Power Could Not Possibly Look Cheaper Despite Huge Budget

With the millions of dollars that Amazon poured into The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the show appears to still look cheap, fans complain.

Boasting a whopping $465 million budget, The Rings of Power feels like "slapped together" and not crafter like those rings in the finale. After the first season came to an end, fans clearly had more time to go over the episodes again and watch closely into things they might have missed for the first time.

Among such things, attentive critics discovered a lot of "cheap" trick like copy-pasting extras to create a crowd or even... an armor that looks like it is straight out of a local second-hand?

(via)

"It's a dynamic armor, you fool. It's scale most of the time, but when you aren't looking, it saves energy by dissolving itself. It's an eco armor," one Redditor joked after seeing the screenshot of an armor that could easily let any kind of knife slide in.

According to fans, the reason for such a paradox is obvious. Despite having plenty of money, the showrunners simply did not put enough effort and care into the series, people claimed. Many productions, fans pointed out, cared so much exactly because they did not have a huge budget and had to come up with creative ways and put effort. With The Rings of Power, it looks like they simply thought money can solve anything.

Rings of Power Showrunners Would've Been Out of Job Already if Not for the Emmys

Others insisted that big-budget TV and cinema projects have "degraded" due to over-reliance on CGI. The Rings of Power does indeed have a lot of visual effects, which, however, were praised by the majority of fans as stunning. However, many people also argued that the visuals degraded when the show approached to the finale, with some fans speculating that it might have been due to the showrunners spending most of the money in the beginning of the shooting and failing to plan their expenses properly.

Still, there is a chance for The Rings of Power to learn its lesson in season 2, which is already in the works. The premiere date is to be announced later.

However, there might be a chance that the Lord of the Rings prequel might enjoy less massive budgets in the future, as Amazon has already lost $1 tillion in stock value.