Tolkien's books have inspired multiple adaptations over the years. Some of them managed to recreate his world, bringing it to life in all its majesty and winning the hearts of fans of the books and many viewers unrelated to his original work alike. However, other adaptations have been a complete disaster, antagonizing the fans and causing deep boredom to most of its viewers. Why, coming from the same place, have we come to love so much some of them and hate others? Let's compare Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy with the Rings of Power TV series to see what their differences are. Let's start talking about the Lore, being faithful to the lore will not always guarantee a good adaptation, however, in this case, it is especially relevant. While the Lord of the Rings movies tried to follow the books and be as faithful to the source material as possible... The Rings of Power showrunners decided to rewrite Tolkien's work to "adapt it to the world we live in today." While Jackson's trilogy followed a script very close to Tolkien's original story, which is a world-renowned masterpiece, the TV series, on the other hand, from its beginning, tries to create a script superior to Tolkien’s work and the result… is extremely poor. Let's start by looking at the worldbuilding aspect in both stories:
Although both productions take place on Middle Earth and show us incredible landscapes of it, I can't help but think that the Middle Earth shown to us in Rings of Power seems astonishingly small and poor to me, unlike the greatness that is transmitted in The Lord of the Rings. Let's see some examples, Do you remember the arrival at Moria in the lord of the rings? The Fellowship had to travel for days and withdraw from the path of Karathras until they finally reached the mine, after entering through its secret door, my heart swooned when Gandalf showed the Fellowship the greatness of Moria. In the Rings of Power they show us Khazad Dum in all of its splendor, Did it make my heart swoon? No, at most it earned a half-hearted: how nice. But… why? It may be the way it is presented, while we see how our heroes in the Fellowship of the Ring take their time to reach the mine before it is majestically revealed after wandering in its dark corridors during multiple scenes... Elrond and Celebrimbor travel to Khazad Dum like they were going to their backyard in Eregion, walking and without any kind of supplies. Although we have grandiose landscapes of the mine, c the characters in Rings of Power hardly explore any of the locations that they show to us, and even so, the case of Khazad Dum is the best portrayed in Rings of Power... Let’s compare Rivendell with Eregion in Rivendell we have different scenes in multiple locations during the short time the story takes place there, we will see Gandalf and Elrond in the library, the courtyard where Elrond's council is held, the room where Narsil’s remains are stored and multiple locations shown to us through the eyes of Frodo, Aragorn or Arwen. Now let's see what has been shown to us from the Kingdom of Eregion in Rings of Power, despite displaying majestic views of the entire city on several occasions, at the end, they are just screensavers, since they are not capable of transmitting us the impression that this is indeed a great kingdom in the scenes that take place there. All of them are in Celebrimbor's chambers or his forge, and the courtyard; they don’t even show us a single scene of how the dwarves and elves were working side by side in the forge’s construction. The same happens if we compare what we know of Gondor with what we know of Numenor. Did any of you feel that the majesty of Numenor approached in the slightest Minas Tirith despite presenting it to us as much greater in the extreme long shots? This is not the first time I talk about the memorable alley of Isildur and this problem is only aggravated when we see our characters walking leisurely from Eregion to Khazad Dum or taking what seems like two days to get from Numenor to Mount Doom or 6 from Mordor to Eregion. And this only gets worse if we focus on the content rewritten by the showrunners of the series... ladies and gentlemen, I present to you everything we know about the kingdom of the southern lands, Do we compare it with, for example, the kingdom… well, I mean the Village of Brie in the fellowship of the ring? I think an image is worth a thousand words... So I'm not going to delve further into this topic but I'm going to leave you some sequences to compare the "battle" for the southern lands with the Helm’s Abyss battle in the two towers, since they insisted so much on using it as an example in interviews and articles. What is comparable to the magnitude of this battle in The Lord of the Rings? Mmhm no, the attack on this village is too big, maybe this one: As we all can see, this battle, which is the focal point throughout the series involving not only the southern lands, but the savior army of Numenor, is another factor that dwarfs the entire world of Tolkien. Now let's move on to the characters of the Lord of the Rings, they earn our admiration and our affection, we empathize with them, they move us, we are happy and cry alongside them too. I, in particular, am a watering can, when I am moved by a scene in a good story... I start crying like a little kid. And yes I cried, and a lot, with Lord of the Rings. On the other hand, with the Rings of Power, I slept, a lot. Did the characters move me? I had no doubt that they would all survive the explosion of Mount Doom but I wouldn't have minded if they all died, after more than 9 hours of the show, I couldn't empathize with anyone, and Adar was my favorite. Our heroes in the Lord of the Rings have a much more important external conflict: to save Middle-earth from the yoke of Sauron, whose power threatens all its inhabitants and is an imminent danger. On the other hand, in the Rings of Power Sauron still doesn’t present a threat and the orcs seem to have disappeared from middle earth altogether. This means that in order for us to feel immersed in the story, the internal conflict of the characters has to be well developed, since the external does not seem so serious. In the Lord of the Rings it’s the eternal fight between good and evil, here the elves want to continue being immortal in middle earth instead of returning to Valinor, the dwarves fight between themselves over whether or not excavate the Mithril, and the hardfoots over whether or not throw the stranger and Nori's family from their caravan, all of them quite selfish motivations I must say, therefore they require a good development so that we empathize and understand the characters motives. Do we have this internal development in Rings of Power? Let's take a closer look at its main character: Galadriel. She is driven by revenge and suffers from a lack of empathy and disaffection towards the problems of others, which does not change from beginning to ending, despite all the consequences that her actions brought. At the beginning she does not hesitate to abandon one of her men in order to continue her search, in the end she does not hesitate to hide the identity of Sauron as long as her mistakes are not exposed regardless of the consequences. She is a character who is good at everything and whose development is null throughout the entirety of the season. Let's compare her with Aragorn, he is the heir to the throne of Gondor and descendant of Isildur, his main motivation is to defeat Sauron and protect Frodo. But we also see in several scenes how he fears his past, to fall into temptation as Isildur did. This is going to be shown to us in multiple scenes and even in some of his conversations with Arwen. And the conflict is highlighted when contrasted with Boromir’s character, who also shares this internal struggle but, unlike Aragorn, falls into temptation only to Redeem himself before his death. Moreover, it’s not the only internal conflict that Aragorn must face, he also struggles because of the fact of being heir to the throne of Gondor. We will see how, one step at a time, he will assume that he must leave the ranger behind and become king despite his reluctance. He is a complex and well-developed character that many of us love. This may be the most extreme example, let's move on to the most positive example we have in the Rings of Power. In my opinion the relationship between Durin and Elrond, they have dialogues that deepen their friendship, and Elrond takes an oath to protect the secrets of his friend Durin, regarding Mithril. However, in the end, it doesn't take long for Elrond to betray him and Durin forgives him immediately regardless. We see all of this in under 15 minutes, everything is resolved so easily and so quickly that in the end it takes the tension out of the conflict and disconnects the viewer. On the other hand, let’s compare it with the relationship between Frodo and Sam and their great friendship in the Lord of the Rings, a great example of well-characterized protagonists. The strength and generosity of the hobbits in accepting the burden of the ring, their uncertainties, and their willingness to carry on are conveyed perfectly throughout the films. Moreover it's worth noting the loyalty of Sam and all the conflicts and obstacles that his friendship with Frodo suffers due to the ring and Gollum. We see how they grow apart until Frodo eventually rejects Sam and how Sam's loyalty will make him come back and make their friendship prevail over the obstacles they encounter. All these circumstances make us empathize deeply with the characters and involve us emotionally with their fate. The lack of this emotional connection in the Rings of Power and the lack of tension caused by the plot armor of its main and secondary characters make this series irrelevant in comparison. Finally, another difference which makes The Lord of the Rings a masterpiece and the Rings of Power a terrible show, is the attention to detail. We can see the clear differences between the two in multiple aspects, from the wardrobe: we can see on the screen the design of the armors on the Lord of the Rings compared to the armor that we see in Numenor’s soldiers in Rings of Power. Another example is the fight’s choreography on fighting scenes, while in the Lord of the Rings they exude tension and realism in the rings of power it seems that we are watching a play. Although the Lord of the Rings movies have isolated fighting scenes that could logically be unbelievable, we overlook them being so immersed in the battle. While in Rings of Power we have an infinite succession of inconsistencies that prevent us from getting involved in the action and make us question its plausibility. We will be able to see it in sequences such as the infinite chain in the charge of Numenor, or the orcs, who are unarmed or do not use their weapons at certain moments during the battle until critical moments when they do seem a threat, but only for the main characters to be saved at the last possible second. Finally, the dialogue in the Rings of Power is very lacking and has left us with masterpieces like these: And they haven't even been able to copy the dialogue taken from the Jackson films that preceded them with some sense. The Lord of the Rings, on the other hand, has left us with quotes that will endure over time, that make us reflect and hold deep lessons with which we will be able to resonate and that we can apply in our lives. It is the sum of all these details that make a production and as we have seen it is very important to take care and not overlook them in order to have a good story capable of entertaining and moving the viewer. Finally, although many of us feel disappointed by the Lord of the Rings series that could have been and was not, I think it is a good time for us to appreciate both Tolkien’s work and the Peter Jackson’s movies because they are masterpieces that I consider more valuable with each passing year due to its scarcity. And that will be all for today, please tell me in the comments what are the things you love or hate the most about the Lord of the Rings and the Rings of Power, give a like if you liked the video and subscribe to the channel. See you in the next one and remember that I am open to suggestions for future videos since the series I was reviewing have run out. so any suggestion I will gladly consider. See you in the next one!
