The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has opened its Season 2 Rotten Tomatoes account on a more positive note than its predecessor. While critics have continued to laud the continuation of Prime Video’s epic journey into Middle Earth with a mighty 92% Tomatometer score, audiences have now added their thoughts. While there is still a void between the two sets of reviews that even the bridge of Khazad-dûm could not connect, Season 2’s first episodes have made a huge improvement on those of Season 1.
The Rings of Power became one of many TV shows and movies to fall victim to review bombing from those unhappy with some of the changes made to Tolkien canon. Alongside these complaints were stacked up 1-star reviews citing bad dialogue, slow plotting, and, more often than not, some mention of race or gender.
Now Season 2 has landed on Prime Video, and has managed to secure a relatively strong 56% approval rating from viewers. This is a big improvement from the 38% collected by Season 1. In the main, the big complaints about race and gender seem to have dwindled this time around, and have been replaced by more detailed plot or dialogue related reasons for “rotten” reviews. Whether Season 2 can continue to win over more of the fandom as new episodes arrive is something we will see very soon.
What Are Audiences Saying About The Rings of Power Season 2?
Like any adaptation of a popular novel, The Rings of Power was always going to come up against opposition from those claiming to be true Tolkien fans. Unlike Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy, The Rings of Power is not based on a detailed set of novels, but instead draws on the outline of Middle Earth’s Second Age, which is found in the Appendices Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This has allowed Amazon to fill in the gaps as they see fit, and that has not always been popular with some. However, Season 2 has drawn a good share of positive comments for its opening episodes.
Among the first reviews, Wil M commented that “after a slow first season, I believe season 2 improves in all aspects, and while it still doesn’t come anywhere close to the original trilogy it seems to have finally found its footing. This season does not deserve the hate and is a massive step up from the first season.” Joseph S added that “picking up from the somewhat flaccid first series, season two has been pumped with much more. Finally, a story is being told which now feels like we are in Tolkien’s world, as Amazon have started connecting the dots.” This is something that is echoed through many of the positive reviews, suggesting that The Rings of Power’s second season has done exactly what it promised and immediately built on the work done in Season 1 to set up this version of Tolkien’s world.
However, there are still those who are not on board the multi-million dollar production. Apos D said that “it’s a mess. Random names applied to totally irrelevant places and people. Writing is extremely bad. Some people assumed that Tolkien would write the imaginary lines in their heads. Bad. Totally bad” Meanwhile, Santiago N followed this by saying that “there are some small improvements but still dragging the same issues the first season. Very slow, some plots are hard to watch and stay awake. Galadriel one of the worse characters of the show. Good soundtrack.” Well, every cloud and all that.
In the end, these reviews mean nothing when looking at the success of The Rings of Power. A week before the new season hit Prime Video, Season 1 returned to the top of the TV chart with more viewers than many new shows can garner. When the viewership of Season 2 is announced, it is quite easy to assume that the numbers will surpass the original season very quickly.
The first three episodes of
The Rings of Power
Season 2 are available now, with new episodes releasing each Thursday until October 3.
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