TV

Fallout Is Everything LotR: Rings of Power Dreamed to Be With Just 1/3 of Its Budget

Fallout Is Everything LotR: Rings of Power Dreamed to Be With Just 1/3 of Its Budget
Image credit: Amazon Prime Video

Money can’t buy everything, it turns out.

Summary:

  • To date, Prime Video 's installment of the famous Lord of the Rings franchise, Rings of Power, is considered the most expensive TV flop.
  • With a budget of $465 million spent on production, the first season of the show received major fan backlash and a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
  • At the same time, Amazon’s another adaptation, Fallout, managed to wow fans and spend only $153 million on production.

It is never an easy task to add something of value to an already-existing enriched universe. That is why so many people believe that some of the franchises are better left alone, rather than changed and expanded to become something else. With The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy being so successful, no one really needed another installment.

However, Prime Video has decided that they are ready to step into the dangerous waters, and ended up failing quite miserably. With almost half a billion spent, Rings of Power has made the fans of Tolkien’s fantasy world so unhappy, they completely destroyed the show’s reviews.

Is Rings of Power Really Bad?

If you've never seen or read anything from the Lord of the Rings franchise and don't consider yourself a fan, the show might actually make a nice impression. Even though some people complain that the visuals don't match the series' insanely inflated budget, it's a quality fantasy story.

Or it would have been, if it hadn't been tied to an original Lord of the Rings story.

Fallout Is Everything LotR: Rings of Power Dreamed to Be With Just 1/3 of Its Budget - image 1

With an audience rating of 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, the first season of the show is trashed for completely ruining the motivation of the characters and twisting the narrative in a way that benefits the story the show wants to tell, but messes with the world it has to fit into.
Unfortunately, the positive reviews are few and far between.

Surely, the team behind Rings of Power has a great chance to take the criticism and make some changes to the story to make the show thrive. However, what fans find sad is the way the beloved fantasy universe was treated the first time around. Especially since the studio has proven itself capable of an accurate adaptation thanks to the Fallout series.

Fallout Is Everything LotR: Rings of Power Dreamed to Be With Just 1/3 of Its Budget - image 2

Though the post-apocalyptic setting is still challenging to create and requires a lot of graphics, Fallout managed to nail it, as well as some of the game-specific details, while spending three times less than Rings of Power. With a budget of only $153 million, the series was able to capture the magic of the franchise.

Of course, all eyes are now on LotR: Rings of Power season 2, which is due out later this year. Whether or not the team makes the necessary changes will determine the fate of the series. However, fans of the franchise will forever remember how they were let down by Prime Video the first time around.