Rings of Power

I'm a huge Tolkien nerd, I watched the first episode but never felt like continuing it, so I didn't. I heard a lot of people are liking S2 more than S1. Glad you're having a good time.

Bro, there's some debris blocking the entire river, come on, explain it to me. While I liked the first season more or less, the second season is simply weak in terms of stupid blunders and acting.

Needed a vote option about female dwarves and the lack of beards!

Saw season 1, was okay, not overly exciting. Have yet to start season 2 yet.

Black elves and dwarves doesn't matter to me at all. And I like both some of the actors and some of the characters. What I haven't enjoyed so far is the actual writing, which is a shame because a lot of the action sequences and individual moments have been really cool in the series.

Interesting side note: There has been a lot of debate as to whether Tolkien was racist or not. He denounced Nazi Germany's racialist views, but that doesn't necessarily imply that he didn't think less of certain people. And a lot of people believe he wrote Orcs to represent Africans. I have no idea what is or isn't true in that regard.

As to canon or not canon, Christopher Tolkien filled in a lot of the unfinished parts of the Silmarillion and the legendarium himself and edited some translations of Chaucer's works, and so I think the implication there is that the Tolkien family isn't really opposed to a bit of creative license or individual interpretations with JRR's work or in general.

It's pretty good. I've recently rewatched the 6 live action movies, the cartoon hobbit movies, and both seasons of rings of power. I like them all for different reasons. There has been a growing trend of hate dogpiling and generally not giving new things in a given series a chance. I say watch the whole thing (of anything in general) before you even look at what people are saying about it. Form your own opinion and don't give into whole hive mindset "this thing is for sure good/bad" as per the internet.