As a Tolkien fan, maybe it’s surprising I haven’t brought up Rings of Power yet. The truth is, I haven’t talked about the showbecause I didn’t think I had anything to add to the conversation that wasn’t out there. But as I’ve considered the series—and the conversation surrounding it—I finally landed on something I want to say about it.

So, I’m not going to sit here and break down lore inconsistencies or critique how “un-Tolkien” the show is—there are plenty of other reviewers and commentators who have commented on those things. And, to be honest, I still haven’t brought myself to watch the second season. While I appreciated some moments from the first season, I mostly disliked it, and I know enough details about the second season that make me just want to avoid it, though I’ll probably watch it at some point.

Instead of yet another lore breakdown or specific critique of the series itself, I want to talk about Rings of Power and its placement in a larger cultural trend related to intellectual property (IP) perpetuation, something I’ve been thinking about a lot, especially related to Marvel content, among other things. My post is going to be mostly critical, because as much as I wanted to like Rings of Power and come around to it…I just can’t. Maybe someday. But I do have something unexpectedly positive to say at the end, so stick with me, those of you who are Rings of Power fans.

My first big question about Rings of Power is this: should it be a TV show, really? Lately, TV shows are feeling less like shows and more like extended movies arbitrarily broken up into smaller chunks. Sometimes, that format pays off, but more often than not, I feel like I finish a Disney+ show and just wonder: “So… why was this a TV show and not just a movie?”

Now, some of this critique depends on what you think a TV should look like. From my perspective, as someone who is admittedly not a screenwriter, I think good TV shows should be intentionally episodic, which doesn’t mean the show can’t tell an overarching story, too. Gravity Falls, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Lost in Space, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are all examples that come to my mind as good examples of what an ideal TV show should look like, in my mind. Each episode tells a self-contained story, though some or all episodes may include small pieces that build up to a final climax, either for each season or for the series as a whole.

But Rings of Power does not do this, at least in the first season. The pacing feels like watching an overly-stretched movie, with each episode slogging along just to build up to a climactic final episode. The episodes’ endings seem to happen just when it reaches a certain minute mark, rather than it reaching the conclusion of a clear story arc, often with some sort of cliffhanger thrown in that operates more like a crutch to convince you to keep watching than one that makes narrative sense. This is how the Disney+, IP-driven shows (for Marvel and Star Wars) seem to work as well. In a culture that glorifies bingeing shows, maybe this model of an extended movie makes sense, but nonetheless, it still drags. They are boring and don’t seem to move the plot along very well. With Rings of Power specifically, it feels especially padded and unfocused, especially since there’s so much extra content that feels superfluous and only there to justify making a multiple-season show. I think it would’ve been much better if they had just considered making it a movie instead. I admit that some of my assessment might be personal preference, but I’m also not the only one who has criticized the pacing of Rings of Power or other Disney+ shows.

My second issue: more and more, popular IP seems to be used as a marketing crutch, limiting true creativity. Sometimes, these padded shows like Rings of Power and most original Disney+ content feel like they’re produced simply because they’re seen as a way to make a quick buck on a guaranteed loyal audience. Because they rely on the IP to draw in the views and dollars, they don’t make much of an effort to be creative or they may slack on some of the craft elements, whether that’s rushed CGI, bad writing (such as the poor pacing problem), etc. There’s little to no substance, just a show to consume, adding to the content machine.

The other side-issue that fits into this, too, is that sometimes the teams behind these IP-driven shows do try to innovate, but way too much and in the ways that make the existing fans unhappy. The Acolyte comes to mind as maybe the biggest recent example of this, though Rings of Power arguably does the same by adding characters, trying to humanize orcs in a way Tolkien never intended, and bringing Gandalf into the story just to give him a backstory. They break the IP, in some ways, by doing this.

I don’t mean to contradict myself by saying these shows fail due to a lack of creativity and in the next saying they fail because of a lot of creativity – I see these two things as ends of a scale, and they are related. I wonder, sometimes: if you want to tell your own story, why not create your own IP? Why attach a new idea to something that already exists? Again, The Acolyte comes to mind; the showrunner wanted non-Star Wars fan perspectives on the show. That’s odd, for an IP with such a massive fanbase. Attaching their story to an IP that exists—without a true love for the IP itself—feels like a lazy marketing tactic, because you’re not letting the story stand on its own, you’re using the IP as a crutch. Blaming the fans when it doesn’t work is another symptom of this; critical fans are not the problem, it’s a lack of creativity that still respects the established IP.

From my perspective, the point of IP is that it is familiar. Fans of that IP aren’t looking for someone to reinvent it, to subvert it, to completely dismantle it. Innovation with IP is great, but it needs to be done, first of all, with an established respect for the original material, and second of all, it needs to actually matter. Often, these IP-driven shows fail at one of these, if not both. Kenobi is an example of a show that I think respects the lore (primarily through Anakin and Obi-Wan’s continued conflict), but I don’t know that that story needed to be told, because it unnecessarily complicates what we know of the established Star Wars story. Rings of Power is the inverse: it’s trying to tell a story that matters (by bringing to life the story of the rings’ creation), but it is doing it in a way that does not respect the lore (at least in the opinions of myself and many other dedicated fans of Tolkien). Now, I recognize that you’re not going to please everyone, and intense fans are especially nitpicky about what they see as “canon,” but if something sounds so resoundingly inauthentic to the majority of Tolkien fans, I do think that is a red flag.

This conflict between creators and fans is at the center of my third and final consideration: ownership. Specifically, who owns the IP: the creators or the fans? I think about this a lot as a writer. After all, I as the author have a vision for my own work, but fandom communities inspired by stories then try to find ways to make those stories their own. And as much as I want to sit on my high horse and say, “The creator always knows best,” I also know that as a fan, I’ve ignored pieces of canon in some of the IPs I enjoy, based on things I didn’t like, and maybe interpret aspects of stories in ways the creators didn’t intend. With something like Tolkien’s work, where the original creator has passed, these lines get even blurrier, as fans get the opportunities to then become creators, while still contending with the opinions of other fans. How do you honor the original creator’s legacy, when you interpret things through a fan lens? I don’t have an answer to this, but it relates to the whole issue of IP use in creativity and marketing, and maybe complicates everything I’ve just said so far.

Which leads me to where I want to land today. Because fans disagree, and that makes the assessment of these IP-driven shows messier than we’d like. After all, a good friend of mine, who is also a big Tolkien fan with strong knowledge of the deeper lore of The Silmarillion, likes Rings of Power. His argument is that the changes to lore in Rings of Power are the showrunners enacting Tolkien’s idea of subcreation: they are making his stories their own, carrying on the tradition in new ways and by telling some of their own stories using Tolkien’s world and characters. While I don’t entirely agree with that reading—since Tolkien himself was especially protective of his own mythology, and “subcreation” in Tolkien’s conception has more to do with how we echo God’s creativity, not how we engage with others’—I at least respect that stance. And, I also can’t help but think of Greek mythology and it has been reinvented and retold in so many different ways. Even Tolkien’s work is not wholly original, drawing a lot of inspiration from Old Norse and Old English epics and myths. In today’s world where IP can be owned by individuals or corporations, it’s hard to image a culture of collective, communal ownership over plots, characters, myths, motifs, etc., like how the tales of the ancient world and medieval era were told. Culturally, we maybe don’t have the clearest picture of what stories actually should be within and for the community, because we get so focused on issues of IP and ownership. Our current system of storytelling and fandom is not set up well to receive alternate interpretations of stories, and that is part of the underlying issue with the conflict and criticism surrounding Rings of Power.

The final thing that gives me pause: my mom is inspired by Rings of Power. This is a big deal. My mom is notorious for not liking much speculative fiction (although there are a few she begrudgingly admits to liking), so the fact that Rings of Power goes as far as to inspire her, not merely something she just likes in passing, holds weight. It makes me wonder: am I just blinded to my insistence that Tolkien remain lore accurate? Is there really a problem with the show?

So, what do I do with all of this? Well… I’ve decided to just let it be. As a Tolkien fan, I’m allowed to be disappointed with what could’ve been excellent. Though I may be biased against the show, I do think some of my criticisms are valid and hold weight. Like I said, I have issues with the plotting and added content that feels unnecessary to the overall story. But as fellow Tolkien fans of varying levels, my family and friends are also allowed to enjoy it. Art is subjective, after all, and nothing is going to entertain every single person on Earth. I kind of wish I could just remove expectations from the series so I could love it, too. At the end of the day, history will show what’s worthy of keeping around, what is truly worthy of attention in our content-saturated society. I suspect that we’ll still gravitate towards Tolkien’s original writings over Rings of Power, though who knows? I could be proven wrong.

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What do you think of Rings of Power?