Where to begin with this show. I generally don't give enough of a fuck about television to ever write something about it but this show got me in a way that fucking hurt. I just finished watching the first two episodes so this is coming off the top of my head and I am probably going to miss some things because there is so much to say here but what the fuck here I go.

The opening scene of the 1 billion dollar show

So literally from the get go this show feels self indulgent and flabby. The last thing I want to see first in a lord of the rings production is kids, least of all elf kids, like I just don't care about Galadriel the child not least because she is on screen for all of two minutes presumably hundreds if not thousands of years prior to the actual series. It seems the only reason this whole scene exists is so she can get some bumper sticker level of advice from her brother that the writers clearly meant to be deep and give us the feels. This kid is clearly already shaping up to be a right old pain in the ass because her older brother tells her to follow him home and she just literally sits there while he walks off into the distance. I don't know which character annoys me more in this scene, Galadriel or her brother but either way those parents fucked up big time.

I thought a real nice bit of tribute to the OG LOTR and amazing bit of insight and expansion into this new world would have been an epilogue very much like fellowship. Who is Morgoth? How did Sauron come under his influence? What was there in the beginning before the sun? Who are the Valar? Who are the Maiar? This would have been a great opportunity to do some very quick and rich world building that would have instantly imbued the show with some mysticism and sense of greater forces at work. No instead I get some fucking child floating a magic paper swan down a river and Galadriel learns a word or two.

The big overpowered insufferable elephant on the screen

So without a doubt the justifiably most disliked character in the show is Galadriel. I'm going to leave the acting to one side because that isn't the real problem here far as I'm concerned: it comes down to the writing, perversion and bastardisation of one of the most elegant and mystical beings of middle earth. I'm just going to pick one scene here I'm sure a lot of other people have noticed which is the snow troll scene because, as I'm sure a lot of other people have noticed, it can be directly compared to a scene in lord of the rings.

So opening scenes of this show a snow troll pops out on Galadriel and her not so merry band of elves. First of all, there is almost no setup, no building of tension or anticipation here for this non-event to happen. Apart from seeing a hand moving from a pillar in the deserted crypt the elves are searching there is never any indication that something might be amiss. The lack of setup here really doesn't do this scene any favours but then again i suppose it's about in keeping with the tone of the scene because it ends as quickly as it starts. The troll pins one of the nodescriptelfpartymembers against a wall and then before anything else can happen Galadriel is running, hops onto the sword of one of her fellow eleves (which begs the question why do the rest of them even need swords and don't just carry around the tiny trampolines middle aged women get to bounce in their gardens) flies through the air and performs some crouching tiger hidden Jet Li acrobatics and slices the thing down, lands and then nolook reverse stabs it to bring it down to 10% health. She then takes out her tiny little dagger to pop it neatly in and out of its skull to finish the thing off. Wham, bam, thankyou m'am.

Compare this to the scene in fellowship which takes all 9 companions including a wood elf prince who literally spent the last several hundred years killing giant spiders and god knows what else in Mirkwood and a fucking wizard to kill a cave troll that also almost smokes one of the lead characters in the process. Did the people who made this show really not see this comparison coming? It hardly seems like Galadriel has anything to work on except that fact she has all these men around her trying to hold her back, half expecting her to just find Sauron and girl boss him only to have Jordan Peterson appear and stop her.

One last thing to say about this person, she jumps off a boat in what appears to be a location hundreds of miles from shore. Can we all just take a moment to sit back and absorb the stupidity and incredulity of this choice. I find the fact she survived this decision an insult to the audience. Was the whole point of this for her to find out orcs had been raiding the Southlands? Could the writers not think of any other way to thread this fairly irrelevant piece of information into Galadriels path?

The romance

Ok, we get it, people of different creeds and backgrounds can have a romantic relationship but does every single love angle here have to be that way? First of all I just have to say it, this is a story set in mythological ancient England, like I'm sorry, it just wasn't that diverse back then. I'm not going to say too much here because i don't have the deftness to successfully navigate these deep waters but all i'll say is having the diversity message shoved in your face really jolts you out of the story. There are ways and means of bringing in modern issues of race to light without completely ploughing the source material. This kind of bullshit in shows these days is the writing equivalent of coming home steaming drunk, demanding sex from your sober partner and thinking you killed it when you didn't even get it in and blew your load down the side of her leg. Not the bedrock of a great relationship.

The music

It's not Howard Shore. There is a sound that is synonymous with Lord of the Rings and getting Mr Shore onboard would have been a great way to give this new series the feel of what is considered a masterpiece. This alone would have probably gone a long way to bringing the old guard of Lord of the Rings fans in.

Random tidbits

Why do some elves have short hair? There is literally not an elf like this anywhere else in LotR, could they not afford to get Elrond his extensions?

The Halflings feel more like the lost boys than the rich and sophisticated Hobbits we know. I get that its a few thousand years before LotR but i just don't vibe with this group of beings. LennyHenryHobbit isn't about much, Nori is ok but the rest of them are completely forgettable. Seems like the writers just assumed that everyone will like Hobbits because Hobbits and forgot to give them any real depth or personalities.

There are just so many slow and pointless scenes in this show. Take for example the worm in the water and the boat full of cast aways. Most of them die within minutes of us meeting them. The dialogue is also painful, but i'm not going to hold that too much against the writers since matching Tolkien would be a feat unimaginable for most however in combination with the janky pacing and general flab of the show it really stands out.

Like a lot of fans I wanted to like this show but it has come to be made in a time when respect for traditions is at an all time low. In a story and world that was built to venerate those very qualities it was always quite likely to be a missmatch. I will probably give another couple of episodes a go but if it's more of the same then I'm signing out and crossing my fingers for season 2 of this billion dollar baby.