The reception that ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ has had has been far from being unanimous. It is true that the opinions of the critics have been mostly positive, but among the public there is a resounding minority that does not stop attacking the Amazon Prime Video series at the slightest opportunity they have to do so.
It is true that strange movements on the part of Amazon such as the sudden disappearance of a multitude of negative user reviews that reappeared when the hare jumped on what they were doing does not say much in its favor. Those who were away from this type of controversy until now were Patrick McKay and JD Paynethe showrunners of ‘The Rings of Power’, but that just changed.
“We find it difficult to understand”
Not long ago, an article appeared in The Hollywood Reporter that detailed many aspects of the series, such as the fact that the best offer to keep the rights was from Netflix, but the heirs of Tolkien they ended up scared of what they wanted to do. Within the same insurance that I am not the only one who had overlooked this statement by Payne about the wave of criticism received by the series for its commitment to a more inclusive approach:
Tolkien’s spirit is that disparate peoples, who don’t trust each other and look different, find common ground in friendship and achieve great things. That’s the spirit we’ve tried to instill in every comma and period in the series. That this aspiration is offensive to people and makes them angry… it is very difficult for us to understand. What are they protecting? I don’t see how people who say these things think they are fighting for the good. There is a line in episode seven where Galadriel says that all war is fought from without and from within. Even if you are fighting for something that you think is good, if you do something worse in that fight, then you become evil. I don’t see how people who say these things think they are fighting for the good. It is clearly evil.
Something tells me that these words from Payne are not going to sit exactly well with those who had already shown how little they were liking the Amazon series. It is true that here we have not resorted to that despicable argument that attacks any negative opinion pointing out that if you don’t like it, it is because you are racist -which I have no doubt will be what happens in some cases, mind you-, but I don’t think anyone takes it well to be identified as evil…
I remind you that the final episode of the first season of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ will premiere this next friday october 14 and that the Amazon series is already shooting its second batch of episodes.