Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagRings of Power (Amazon film series 2022-)

golden-ring-and-mountains-digital-art-3d-render-stockpack-adobe-stock
Golden Ring and Mountains Digital Art 3D Render

Don’t Turn The Lord of the Rings into Star Wars

When you have something as good as the world of Middle Earth, it becomes ever easier to injure the original vision and trade quality for commercial success

Amazon’s The Rings of Power, which is based on the appendices in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, was an ambitious and expensive project that arguably provided little more than a surface-level and underdeveloped interpretation of Middle Earth and its characters. The show, while entertaining and with its strengths, exemplified a flaw many fans feared: commercializing Tolkien inevitably leads to compromise. Even Peter Jackson’s highly praised rendition of the fantasy epic has its critics, including Tolkien’s son and heir of the family estate, Christopher. The show was visually stunning but had some storytelling issues. For one, we don’t ever get a sense of Middle Earth’s size. Characters pop in and out of different places as if it’s a five-minute Read More ›

light in the forest
Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego,Ushuaia

Amazon’s Rings of Power and Where the Conflict Really Lies

If Peter Jackson gave the LOTR cast unnecessary internal conflicts, then the Rings of Power writers have done it on steroids.

The third and fourth episodes of Rings of Power have aired as of September 16th. Thousands of reviews have fountained across the internet over the last couple of weeks, some from rankled fans, others from satisfied enthusiasts, and others with both good and bad things to report. The show, as we all anticipated, has not gone without its fair share of controversy and pushback, but for this review, I want to lay those conversations aside and instead focus on some pros and cons of the recent episodes from my own perspective. To begin on a positive note, I enjoyed these last couple of episodes much more than the first two. The storyline seems to be getting somewhere. Galadriel is being Read More ›

trail-through-a-mysterious-dark-forest-in-fog-autumn-morning-in-himalaya-nepal-magical-atmosphere-fairytale-stockpack-adobe-stock
Trail through a mysterious dark forest in fog. Autumn morning in Himalaya, Nepal. Magical atmosphere. Fairytale

Amazon’s Rings of Power: Some Warning Signs But Still Hope

The screenwriters had to create dialogue from Tolkien’s notes about the world in which Lord of the Rings is set

The first two episodes of the long-anticipated series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power were released on September 2nd on Amazon Prime. With a budget of over $1 billion, Rings of Power is the costliest TV show ever produced. It makes sense, then, that fans expected a lot from the premiere. Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy is widely considered a cinematic masterpiece, and millions of avid Tolkien readers are watching vigilantly for violations against the “canon.” The show stars a young Galadriel (Morfydd Clarke) as a stubborn, resilient warrior. For years, she has been tasked with eradicating any trace of evil after the apparent fall of Sauron, the rogue servant of the evil Morgoth. Read More ›