The Rings of Power Season 2 Is Over: Did It Turn Out to Be Better Than Season 1?
Well, the answer will disappoint you.
On October 3, Prime Video released the final episode of the second season of the most expensive series in history, The Rings of Power. The ambitious project, which fans have rightly called a fan fiction based on JRR Tolkien's legendarium, continues to bend its line while trying to correct the mistakes made two years ago, but does not change anything globally.
The Second Season Inherits the Mistakes of the First Season
The viewers have already been presented with 20 hours of material, and all of that is just exposition for the main events. And if they at least warned about the first season, then the second season was not part of the deal. Most of the time we are forced to watch pretentious and meaningless dialogues, and at the end of the season they give us the Battle of Helm's Deep.
In addition, there is a constant sense of forced scripting throughout the series. Some characters obviously act this way and not that way because there are certain events that have to happen in the future. This is a kind of curse of the prequels that you have to be able to get around.
The most successful example in recent years is Andor, where the fate of the character is known from the very beginning, but this does not prevent the project from being exciting for a second. Unfortunately, The Rings of Power does not have such a skill, otherwise the brilliant scene with Isildur's rescue by his own horse or endless absurd love lines would not exist.
The Rings of Power Tries Too Hard to Be Game of Thrones
It is no secret that the standard of serial fantasy today is Game of Thrones. Thanks to it, there was a genre boom, and The Witcher, The Wheel of Time, and other series appeared, including The Rings of Power. Everyone wanted a piece of the action, but even Game of Thrones couldn't repeat its own success with House of the Dragon.
At the same time, each project seems to have all the cards in its hand: a strong literary foundation, financial support, little-known charismatic actors in the cast, a large fan base, but for some reason the magic never happens. Most likely, one important element is missing: the right time and context, which is where A Song of Ice and Fire adaptation fits in perfectly.
As for The Rings of Power, it is too clearly based on the familiar standard. The viewer is forced to follow several storylines. Only Game of Thrones threw you right into the thick of things, and in The Rings of Power the narrative is stretched.
For example, the harfoots just go somewhere for two seasons, which makes them seem like a spin-off, because they do not intersect with the main events in 20 hours, and that is a big problem.
The Creators of The Rings of Power Don't Seem to Know Which Audience to Target
Despite all the problems, the streaming still plans to release five seasons. And considering that viewers know where the events are going, five seasons is an indecently long time. If the creators removed the pointless dialogue, stopped dragging out the events, polished up the new characters' lines, and stopped breaking the canon, they could easily fit into three solid seasons that viewers could love.
After four years, the creators don't seem to have decided which audience they're trying to reach. For the fans of Game of Thrones, the show looks too childish, and for the fans of Tolkien's work, The Rings of Power is funny fan fiction where elves are given pathetic psychology and orcs fight for civil rights, the ability to build a family and raise children.
The Rings of Power lacks the spirit of adventure, light humor and a fascinating story. Unlike the creators of the series, Peter Jackson had a great sense of when the characters needed to hit the road, when they needed to sit down and talk, and when they needed to bare their swords.
It's a shame that a project with such potential was turned into an unremarkable fantasy with an unjustifiably inflated budget and running time.