It’s been quite a bumpy ride for the cast and crew of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The prequel series to the iconic fantasy stories, while overall successful, had its fair share of criticism from hardcore Tolkien fans. In an interview with Vanity Fair, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay made it clear that those criticisms were heard and will have an impact on later seasons. Payne says the following.
Certainly, you look at audience response, and you see what characters people love, and what kinds of storytelling moves them. I wouldn’t say we’re over-correcting for any of it, but we’re certainly listening to people’s responses.
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McKay also added in that the bar couldn’t be higher for what the team wants to achieve. The tricky side is that what the team sees compared to what the audience sees have a long space in between. Showrunners that already know the twists and turns in the writing process see a very different canvas than what the millions of viewers see when the project is already completed.
“In terms of how it’s impacted season two, we wrote most of season two before season one came out. We’re refining the last bits of it now as we’re starting to shoot. But really, the cake was kind of baked before the audience response came in.”
“…In some ways the audience response, we’re a year ahead of that because we saw it a year ago, and we were like, ‘Here it’s really seeming to work, and here it’s maybe not working as well as we might have hoped or thought it would,’” he said. “So to the extent there’s a course correction, it’s just us building on the strengths of the show and on the strengths of our actors and our designers.”
The Long Road To The One Ring
From its conception, Rings of Power was always meant to tell its story over a 50-hour series. The showrunners recently opened up about both their long and short-term plans for the series. McKay had this to say on the details.
Currently, it’s unclear if any of those tent pole moments will be affected by the criticisms. Since the show’s premiere in September, it’s been subjected to notable backlash ranging from changes from the source material to ‘forced diversity.’ The outcry has caught the attention of notable names fighting for either side of the issue, such as fantasy author Neil Gaiman and entrepreneur Elon Musk.
“There is a long-term plan with tent pole moments along the way and a very specific and clear endpoint. And that goes not just for sort of big narrative plot lore things, but also for character arcs.”
