"Corporate-mandated fanfiction": Internet slams 'The Rings of Power' first look

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Amazon Prime Video's highly anticipated new fantasy series, has released its first-look photographs. The first season, which has eight episodes, will debut on the platform on September 2, 2022.

The images, which showcase the show's primary characters, were disclosed by Vanity Fair.

---

The internet's reaction to the first look of The Rings of Power

Change is inevitable, but it is rarely accepted with open arms. And that has certainly been the case with the new adaptation of The Lord of the Rings franchise as it ventures into the scope and history of middle Earth.

The storyline of the series has been completely distorted as fans are made to witness both familiar and unfamiliar faces. Amazon has forced diversity into the plot in places where it makes the entire story fall apart.

The Amazon drama is based on Tolkien's extensive backstory, which he spelled out in the Lord of the Rings trilogy's appendices. The studio will almost certainly spend around $1 billion on five seasons.

Most other studios would be bankrupted by such a budget, but Tolkien, much like space exploration, is a personal fascination for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the world's richest people. This is a major commercial initiative that will allow him to produce the most expensive and sophisticated television series ever produced.

Twitter has exploded, with fans echoing their voices of disapproval. While elves are made to be depicted with short hair, dwarves are beardless in this new adaptation. All the characters appear younger in age than they are supposed to, according to the timeline.

The biggest controversy lies in the fact that the Queen of the Dwarves is made to be played by an African-American woman without a beard, when her ethnicity in the original story is essentially Caucasian.

Compressing over a thousand years of history of the second age into one season and making Elrond political hasn't been accepted by Twitter as well.

One of the biggest jabs loyal Lord of the Rings fans find is that the calm, gifted and serene Galadriel, played by Cate Blanchett, has been turned into looking like a brash warrior woman in The Rings of Power.

From deep under the Misty Mountains' dwarf mines to the high politics of the Elven realm of Lindon and the humans' strong, Atlantis-like island, Nmenor, the series will include 22 stars and various plot lines.

All of this will eventually result in the event that gives the trilogy its name. And such distortion of age, look and ethnicity has resulted in making the lavish The Rings of Power look like fanfiction, and far from what was the original vision of the author.