The Rings of Power Failed Dramatically With Handling Its Budget
Even when you have a lot of money, you want to carefully plan your spending, especially when you are creating a massive Lord of the Rings prequel... right?
The team behind Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power had everything it could wish for to create a show of their dreams. Amazon has really forked out for the series, offering a whopping $465 million as per Deadline.
Basically, the creators had the freedom to do virtually anything, as the show with such an astronomical budget is already considered the world's most expensive one. But does it mean the best one?
According to a quick analysis by Reddit user yxalitis, The Rings of Power producers simply failed to handle the huge budget right. It seemed to the user that pretty much all the money was used in the first episodes — and not in the most responsible way.
"In Game Of Thrones, which started out with a 'modest' budget, they knew that the Throne Room was pivotal, so that was built full size, and, indeed, is still being used to this day for HOTD [House of the Dragon]. But with ROP, they built (In CGI, which is also very expensive) a huge frozen fortress in the North, and used it for one small scene," the Redditor explained.
That, according to the user, forced the creative team to drastically cut costs later in the season, which is why the Southlands "suffered".
"This is why I think that the Southlands, a supposed kingdom, is represented by a few scruffy villagers and some grass huts," the analysis went on.
Other fans appeared to have agreed with the take.
"The Southlands felt like one tiny village of people and despite my enjoyment, even I laughed when they crowned him the king of basically nothing," Redditor charlichoo argued.
Even though we do get to see other kingdoms in Middle-earth, like the dwarf realm and Numenor, it still feels like The Rings of Power could not handle its own massive amount of money, fans said. Another thing that appears to somewhat prove the sentiment is how, despite its huge budget, The Rings of Power was caught on copy-pasting extras when it needed to create an illusion of a crowd.
Still, Amazon is keen on keeping up with the story, announcing that The Rings of Power will stretch into five seasons. The shooting for the second season is already underway.