Although critics reviews for Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power have been largely positive, the same can’t be said of the show’s user reviews. At Rotten Tomatoes, where the show current currently boasts an 84% crirics score, its audience score is a lowly 34%.
The same is true over at metacritic, where the user score — based on 600+ votes — is 2.3 (out of 10).
In an apparent attempt to avoid the same fate on its own site, Amazon has suspended ratings for the show, with all reviews being held for 72 hours. An Amazon source tells The Hollywood Reporter that this became Amazon’s standard practice on all of its shows this summmer to “help weed out trolls and ensure that each review is legitimate.”
What Amazon considers trolling and/or “legitimate” isn’t clear, but the practice of review bombing high profile shows based on their perceived political or social message (rather than their actual quality) has become increasingly common.
After She-Hulk premiered on Disney+ in August, the show received an 88 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, while its audience score was initially 36%. Ms Marvel faced a similar fate on IMDB upon its release in June.
What each of these shows share is a commitment to diversity on camera, but as THR’s James Hibberd writes, while some 1-star user Rings of Power reviews do indeed take issue with the show’s perceived “political” bent, others criticize its pacing and “wooden acting.”
The first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are now streaming on Prime Video. New episodes drop Fridays through October.
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