Selling the fantasy

I have recently finished 'Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Season 2, which I by and large enjoyed and thought a good step up from the pretty dire first series. Having said that, I read this pretty scathing takedown and can't say I factually disagree with much of it -  I was just a bit more able to put a positive spin on the flaws this time around.

I think I just was determined to enjoy this series, since I'd put the time in. 

Not everyone has put the time in, clearly, It has been much less of a success, both critically and commercially, than hoped. Though several seasons were planned, it is not certain they will get that far. All in all, unless something drastic happens, it looks like going down as a major flop.

There are lots of reasons for that, but I'm just going to consider one of them.

Which, ironically, begins with Game of Thrones, the show that made Lord of the Rings and all Lord of the Rings-related screen content seem a bit green. 

I wasn't as down on the last series of Game of Thrones as most people. I thought most of the angry, self-important, everyone-thinks-they're-an-expert-on-character-arc criticism was nonsense, and also ignored the fact that not every episode in the first few series was a work of genius, far from it. But one simple comment I read that did hold true, and I can't remember if it was from someone like Conleth Hill himself, or a veteran TV critic, was that, naturally enough, as the story had come to a point, it had focused more and more on the "central" characters, the heroes, and most of the significant support characters had already been either killed off or sidelined. Makes sense, but the problem was that those were the great actors. 

The reason Game of Thrones worked, seemed like a TV masterpiece for a long time, was that these lines were being sold to you by Charles Dance, Diana Rigg, Julian Glover, Liam Cunningham, Stephen Dillane, Ciaran Hinds, David Bradley, Jonathan Pryce, Conleth Hill, Aidan Gillen, and on and on ... gravitas. Most of the young actors on Games of Thrones were decent, but looked much better by association, and it's not a surprise that none of them have really, really become a massive star afterwards. 

They couldn't quite carry the last series.

And what of the Star Wars spin-offs, Again, no accident that the one that people think is superb is the one where they spent money hiring Fiona Shaw, Stellan Skarsgaard, Andy Serkis, Anton Lesser, Denise Gough, Ebon Moss-Bachrach etc. make these lines work for adults, you need actors who can carry it off ...

So that's the obvious massive mistake they made with Rings of Power. They spent all that money, but didn't go big on the serious, reassuring, stage presences. Notwithstanding there was, in the first series, some quite bad acting, and there is arguably some seriously off casting in major roles, there were just not enough of, you know, David Morrissey, Alun Armstrong, Joanna Scanlan, David Harewood, Geraldine James, etc in the supporting roles.

They had Peter Mullan, and, you know, those bits were good. They've upped it a bit in the second series - Ciaran Hinds, Kinnear, but, it's too late really. That sense that you could and should take this show seriously is long gone.