Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power reviews were disabled on Amazon Prime for 72 hours, as part of the platform’s efforts to combat trolls. 

An internet troll tries to deliberately cause trouble online, in this case, by review bombing the LOTR prequel. Review bombing is an online phenomenon where a person with multiple accounts, or a group of people, leave negative reviews on a platform. Here, trolls flocked to Rotten Tomatoes, the review aggregator, to tank the series. Rings of Power has an 84% rating from professional critics but only 37% from user-submitted reviews. 

The spinoff prequel based on JRR Tolkien’s works has been fighting social media reactions to its cast inclusivity, while portraying orcs, Harfoots, and other creatures of Middle Earth. Some reviews on Rotten Tomato express similar dissatisfaction, with one reviewer saying, “Nobody has a problem with seeing people of colour in movies, series or stories … but this story was already written and should not have been sullied.”

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Another opined, “Reflecting world diversity in Middle Earth is an odd goal, albeit good for marketing maybe, but it was clearly more important then [sic] making a functional TV series.”

However, a bulk of the negative reviews have come from those who have criticized the show on aspects other than its inclusivity. 

“They spent a billion dollars on backdrops and a film score”, a viewer noted, adding, “The rest is slow moving, wooden acting and there is no reason to actually like the main characters. There is no soul to any of it.” 

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Only two episodes of the series have dropped thus far, and most viewers agree that it is a visually stunning work. Rings of Power has set the story in motion and took the first couple of episodes to build out the universe and introduce viewers to some of the characters. 

In cases of review bombing, ratings normally rise in subsequent weeks, if a show delivers consistent content. Thus, Rings of Power has its work cut out in the days to come, as it bears the burden of expectations from Tolkien fans, and competes with George RR Martin’s House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel on HBO.