Apart from perhaps a couple of costumes worn by the so-called Nazgnagôl, pale imitations of the Nazgûl, there is virtually nothing redeeming about this miserable spectacle. The casting is atrocious, the acting abysmal, the dialogue juvenile, and the plot an incoherent mess. The characters are insufferable, the storytelling contrived, and every attempt at suspense undermined by sheer stupidity. It is utterly devoid of the grandeur, mystery, and spiritual depth that distinguish Tolkien’s work.
Far worse than being bad television, The Rings of Power is a grotesque distortion of one of literature's greatest imaginative achievements and a desecration masquerading as an adaptation. Tolkien’s mythology is repeatedly contradicted and subordinated to the fashionable ideological obsessions of the reprobates responsible for this travesty.
In The Return of the King, Frodo tells Sam that the Shadow can only mock what others have created and never bring forth anything genuinely new. How fitting that Tolkien’s own words should so perfectly describe those now entrusted with his legacy. Incapable of producing anything remotely comparable to his achievement, the showrunners can only subvert and defile what he created. Their arrogance is exceeded only by their incompetence.
Season Three of The Rings of Power serves as a warm-up for another impending disappointment: Amazon’s Blade Runner 2099, arriving later this month.
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) remains one of my all-time favorite films, a visually magnificent, atmospheric, and philosophically compelling work whose ambiguity is central to its enduring appeal. I despised Blade Runner 2049 (2017), particularly its handling of Deckard and the original film’s carefully cultivated uncertainty surrounding his identity. Rather than enriching the original’s mysteries, the sequel diminished them by attempting to revisit questions that were better left unresolved. Not everything requires an explanation, a sequel, or an expanded franchise.
Judging by the trailers, I have little reason to expect Blade Runner 2099 to fare any better.
Nothing Is Sacred
There is something profoundly depressing about watching beloved works continually exhumed and repackaged by people incapable of appreciating what made them extraordinary. No masterpiece, it seems, is safe from the mediocrity of those determined to “improve” upon it.
And yet, I continue to watch these productions. Not because I expect redemption, but because I believe it is important to witness what is being done to beloved works, expose their corruption, and subject those responsible to the ridicule they deserve.
Hate-watching, it seems, has become an endurance sport.
~ By Giovanni di Napoli, November 14th, Feast of St. Josaphat
