Rings of Power Episodes 1-3 Review: A List of My First Impressions

I had a feeling that Rings of Power wouldn't be that great. I didn't think it could ever live up to the Lord of the Rings movies, especially after seeing some of the issues with the Hobbit movies. So when the Rings of Power show started being hyped I tried to ignore it all and not put my hopes up. In fact, my expectations were quite low. Maybe that helped me glean what little enjoyment I could when I finally watched it. Overall, the show isn't too bad, but of course, as I expected, it can't live up to the Lord of the Rings. 

I mean, they're trying to make a story based on random notes and appendices. Of course it can't be as good as JRR Tolkien's well-written stories. Also whereas Peter Jackson was clearly a huge fan who took time to do everything right and had whole teams and workshops dedicated to getting the best effects possible this show has a huge budget but I don't necessarily think it has anyone with that level of dedication to presenting the best possible work. Anyway, despite these issues the show is watchable and at times enjoyable, but it and the controversy around it made me want to come back to this blog and comment on it a bit. 

I'll organize my scattered thoughts into a list of impressions: 

Be warned, I'm not even trying here and there will be SPOILERS AHEAD...

Visuals & Stylistic Choices: 

• I'm finding the Intro visuals extremely disturbing. I don't know what it is about those little crumbs or grains of sand or whatever moving of their own accord into random shapes... I think they could have done literally anything else and it would have been better. 
• Overall, they somehow missed the mark on the Elves. Something about the short hairstyles (actually even Gil-Galad's long hair isn't working for me to be honest) or maybe the excessive CGI or something... the whole thing just isn't giving me those same vibes of "this is amazing" that I used to get from watching the scenes with the elves in LoTR. It's not a huge issue and Elrond's acting grew on me in episode 2, but it's a missed opportunity. 
• What is up with the Irish Borrower-Hobbits' hairstyles? Why? (I mean after seeing the migration scene I think the idea is camouflage but... NO.) 
• I keep seeing people call the show visually stunning, but... I'm not seeing it. To me the CGI is too obvious and none of the visuals have wowed me. Numenor is nice, but... nothing too special. 
• Numenor's buildings - what little glimpses I had - have taken a lot of inspiration from Middle Eastern architecture including Mediterranean and North African designs and colour styles. There was a brief shot of a street at one point with striking blue walls and then some of the decorations... definitely an interesting choice. I really need to re-read some of the source materials, but I could have sworn than in LoTR it mentions some islanders coming to help at the end and their descriptions gave me a very Lebanon-ish vibe so I was interested to see that architecture and it's making me want to re-read the books. 
• That horse riding scene was so bad. They had such a big budget for this show how do they not know how to convincingly show us someone riding a horse and having fun? It can't be that difficult. 
• The Orcs are... strange. It's like they're trying to make them similar to the Orcs in LoTR, but not getting close enough and they just feel like people in badly-made costumes at times. 
• Someone watched Peter Jackson's LoTR movies and made a list of the awesome moments and is trying to recreate them without knowing why people loved them... that is the only possible explanation for the ice roll scene, which just seems like a pathetic copy of the cave troll scene... 

Characters and Acting & Some Thoughts About Racism: 

• Why does Galadriel not open her mouth when she's speaking? It's very annoying. And they keep focusing excessively on her face, like some producer is obsessed here and it's extremely annoying and is making me hate the character.
• I absolutely LOVED the scenes with Durin and Elrond and Durin's family. Excellent.
• Arondir is awesome, but I really could have done without the whole love story between him and that random human woman as his introduction... we do not need love stories and we certainly don't need yet another love story beetween and Elf and a non-elf. Please. 
• Why are all the Irish Borrower-Hobbits Black except the main character and her best friend? This was the perfect opportunity to have a group who is actually supposed to be "browner of skin" in canon to have positive representation and have a Black MC who is awesome, but no, of course they couldn't let such a character who was clearly meant to be beloved be Black. Everyone is so busy trying to defend the show against the racism of the people who freaked out just because there are Black people at all, but once we get over this we're going to have to talk about how the show is still, actually, perpetuating a lot of this racism. 
• While we're on the subject of racism, why have the Queen of Numenor be Black only to make her against the Elves? I really hope this changes or something, because again, it's just lazy and racist to only include Black people so they can do the unpleasant tasks you don't want to have the White characters do. 
• Speaking of which... why did it have to be Arondir who volunteered to cut down the tree? I mean clearly for the elves this is a BIG DEAL and I don't appreciate that they had the only Black Elf we've seen on the show be the one to do it. 
• Galadriel still needs to open her mouth when she speaks. And to stop being such an idiot. 
• I was very excited to see Elendil to be honest with you. He's just great overall and has been doing an excellent job of acting. 

Characters who could be Sauron (or other interesting people): 

• I missed the creepy kid with the magic sword in episode 3. I don't know why no one's said it on any of the discussions I've seen, but the kid was definitely possessed by Sauron after he gave the sword his blood. The way he calmly said "Coming Mother" or whatever at the end of episode 2. He's Sauron guys. 
• Halbrand is interesting, I'll give him that. I think their biggest success with this show so far is making people speculate on who is going to turn out to be Sauron and it's definitely a good way to create interest and get people to discuss things. I'm seeing a lot of people say Halbrand will be Sauron, but an even more interesting theory is that he might turn into a Nazgul or even more interestingly, I saw a take on reddit that he might be the Ghost King (The Way is Shut. It was made by those who are dead. And the Dead Keep It)
• I'm pretty sure the meteor dude is Gandalf, but I've seen some interesting theories about him as well. I really don't want him to end up being Sauron, that's for sure, but they're definitely trying to keep that open as a possibility. 

I think that's enough for now. I'm looking forward to seeing Episode 4 if only to see what they do with some of these characters and see who's going to end up being Sauron. Also, I've mentioned some concerns about racism here, but if they make Arondir turn evil or something I will be extremely mad. He's got to be my favourite character so far.