Elon Musk Under Fire For Lord Of The Rings Series Review
Elon Musk has some typically strong opinions about Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Who could have guessed that?
This article is more than 2 years old
In pop culture, eccentric famous billionaires often have grand visions for the world and huge goals. For example, the BioShock game series has Andrew Ryan and his dream of an underwater utopian city. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has Tony Stark and his suit of armor around the world. C. Montgomery Burns wants to block out the sun itself. In real life, we have tech billionaire Elon Musk complaining about the new Amazon Prime Video series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Twitter. In a nutshell, he is not a big fan, and people are calling him out online for his criticism.
First things first: Elon Musk is a private citizen and perfectly entitled to his views on The Rings of Power, the Amazon Prime Video adaptation of some of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. Nobody has to like anything, for pretty much any reason they feel like. It does seem like Elon Musk claiming that “Tolkien is turning in his grave” is a bit much, especially as there is no particular reason why he would have any insight into the views of a man who had been dead for nearly fifty years. Such a claim is pretty typical of the general tone of online discourse, however, so you cannot say that Elon Musk is not in his wheelhouse in that sense. More people have taken umbrage at his next criticism, in which he claimed “Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice.”
All of those qualities are pretty subjective. It could be inferred that Elon Musk thinks that men are being portrayed negatively, while the main female lead character is being propped up as an unrealistic, wholly positive character. While we do not really feel like addressing the vagueness of his “almost every male character,” it is hard to agree with Elon Musk about Galadriel. If anything, the Elven character has been portrayed so far as borderline fanatical and uncaring of others in her pursuit of Sauron, willing to put her soldiers in danger on a hunch, and clearly not super well-liked or trusted by the Elven High King.
It does seem to be that Elon Musk is allying himself with the contingent of Tolkien fans who do not care for the depiction of Galadriel as different from her character in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which is set thousands of years later after many hugely impactful events that might change a person’s outlook on the world. There is a whole lot about The Rings of Power that will no doubt be portrayed differently from how it is envisioned in the minds of tens of millions of Tolkien fans, Elon Musk included. To be completely fair, there are also quite a few people who agree with the Tesla chief’s opinions, which is also their prerogative. There are also a lot of people who are commenting that this might be yet another veiled swipe in the ongoing public battle between Elon Musk and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos, whose company produced The Rings of Power. We opine that billionaires could do more with their time and resources, but everyone should get the time to watch some tv now and then.
