The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power

Daniel Stipanovic ’25

Contributor

The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power is visually stunning and entertaining but lacks coherent dialogue. The show is accurate to the lore written by J.R.R. Tolk-ien, and does not fail to enter-tain the audience.  

The show takes place during the second age and the rise of Sauron. Sauron helps forge the twenty Rings of Power described in the backstory of the Lord of the Rings series. This takes place after the fall of the Dark lord Morgoth, Sauron’s Master. The elves chase Morgoth from Valinor to Middle-Earth to defeat him after he steals precious jewels called the Silmarils. Eventually, the gods kill Morgoth, and crumble his armies because he had become too powerful. Sauron, as Morgoth’s student, goes into hiding. Sauron’s hiding is the end of the first age and the beginning of the second age.

First, the visuals are amazing. The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power had the most visual effects shots for any production. You can see these spectacles through the amazing scenes the visual effects teams were able to create.

They used the lighting incredibly well and had lots of time to per-fect their shots. They were grant-ed more time for production than other recent pro-duction from Marvel where lack of time and attention is visible on the screen. The Rings of Power Visual Effects Team had plenty of time to make great, quality shots. And they did.

Second, the show is very accu-rate to Tolkien lore. Sure, they did change some things in the show to make it more mysterious. If they had done the exact same thing as the source material, it would have been less interesting. Production was closely monitored by the Tolkien Estate to ensure the lore was accurate. They also brought back old char-acters from the past lore such as Durin, Gil-Galad and, Celebrimbor to create an immersive world.

The show has one fatal flaw: the dialogue was not good. It felt odd at times and was quite clunky and often missed the mark. Overall, the dialogue felt more modern than medieval, and it felt unnatural.

I personally enjoyed The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. People are entitled to other opinions, but I would rate this show a hearty 7.5/10. 

Photo Credit: Prime Video