The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power director Charlotte Brändström bemoaned the fact that Tolkien fans and potential viewers for the Prime Video series judged the show before it came out.
Morfydd Clark (Galadriel) in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), Prime Video
In an interview with Drama Quarterly, Brändström discussed how involved she was with the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power saying, ” if you do an episode of The Outsider, Shogun or The Rings of Power, it’s very creative. You create the world, you create the look. You work with a concept artist, you work with VFX. You have to have a vision.”
She added, “That’s what’s exciting about what we do, and it’s changing so quickly.”
Charlotte Brändström
Later in the interview she bemoaned the idea that potential viewers rejected the show before it came out. She was asked, “How do you look back on making season one of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and what was it like coming back to lead season two?”
Brändström responded, “I loved the episodes I did in season one. I was very proud of them. I spent a lot of time with the showrunner on the look and on the characters to see what we could improve, what is changing, what do people want to see? You don’t sit there and think constantly about how massive it is because it would scare you a lot.”
Lenny Henry as Sadoc Burrows and Beau Cassidy in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), Amazon Studios
She then stated, “The sad thing is a lot of people had judged the show before it even came out, so that was actually tough. But then you try to adapt to that and see what they are really looking for.”
“Some fans were mixing Peter Jackson’s films with Tolkien’s work, and we’ve been trying to stay true to Tolkien and give it a really cool look,” Brändström elaborated. “I love Peter Jackson’s films – that’s why I got involved in the first place. So I guess we’ve tried to mix everything. But the new season is definitely darker. It’s edgy, there’s more drama. I don’t control everything, but I hope people like it.”
Dylan Smith as Largo Brandyfoot, Markella Kavenagh as Elanor ‘Nori’ Brandyfoot, and Megan Richards Poppy Proudfellow in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), Prime Video
Brändström’s comments do not reflect reality. A report from The Hollywood Reporter’s Kim Masters in April 2023 revealed the viewers did give the show a chance, but upon realizing the show was a bait and switch and had nothing to do with Tolkien’s Second Age they quickly tuned out.
Masters reported, “While Amazon, like other streamers, provides only limited data — and internally, it held information even more closely than usual on the series — sources confirm that The Rings of Power had a 37 percent domestic completion rate (customers who watched the entire series).”
“Overseas, it reached 45 percent. (A 50 percent completion rate would be a solid but not spectacular result, according to insiders). The show has not been a major awards contender, either, overlooked by the major guilds with the exception of one SAG-AFTRA nomination for stunt ensemble,” she added.
Morfydd Clark as Galadriel and Charlie Vickers as Halbrand in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), Prime Video
As for the claim that fans were mixing up Peter Jackson’s work with Tolkien’s work, it appears that is projection on her part as she admits “we’ve tried to mix everything.”
The show did not stay true to Tolkien’s legendarium at all. It attempted to make a distinction between Hobbits and Harfoots in order to justify Hobbits existing in the Second Age despite Tolkien making this abundantly clear they did not. The show also introduced a wizard when the wizards did not arrive in Middle-earth until the Second Age.
Daniel Weyman as The Stranger in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), Prime Video
Another change included turning Galadriel into a Joan of Arc style warrior leader when she was more of a diplomat and moral and political leader similar to a young Queen Elizabeth during World War II. The show also changed how Mordor was created with a cringe volcanic explosion rather than it already being desolate due to The Wars of Beleriand during the First Age.
The series also radically changed why the Elves were fading away and introduced the ridiculous idea that mithril, now forged from the light of a Silmaril, could somehow reverse the deterioration of their physical bodies due to weariness. Not to mention it even got the creation of the Rings of Power wrong.
And that’s just a handful of the radical changes the show introduced.
Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor and Robert Aramayo as Elrond in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022), Prime Video
Maybe if Prime Video, Amazon Studios, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, and directors like Brändström had done a true adaptation of Tolkien’s Second Age, viewers would not have torched the show and abandoned en masse.
What do you make of Brändström’s comments?
Yep, Charlotte Brandstorm only cares more about political activism.