Needles & Grooves

I'm actually quite interested, but I'm a huge Tolkien fan.

It looks pretty awesome! Also huge Tolkien nerd

It might just be bringing up bad Hobbit memories, but the sets look cheap to me (from the limited previews I've seen), the actor playing young Elrond looks horribly miscast, and I'm not a fan of unnescary prequels anyway.

I'm approaching it with very low expectations as the trailers haven't done much for me. I've been making my way through the extended films and am finally at Return of the King. The one thing that I feel will hold back the series for me is...no hobbits.

i dunno.. i am not watching it

(1) Hobbit films were disappointing, victims of studio pressure and Jackson's hubris, but there are some really good fan cuts that salvage the story. Rings Of Power looks the part, very much a part of LOTR and The Hobbit visual continuity.

(2) Story may end up being a little loosey-goosey as AMZ didn't have the rights to everything Tolkien wrote about the 2md Age, just the Appendices from LOTR novels. They couldn't use any of the additional background from The Silmarillion, which isn't *bad*, per se, as a lot of that stuff is too dense for TV.