Please hold off on writing a review for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Prime Video just yet. Inconveniently, a 72-hour lag is making it difficult to do. However, rest assured that this holdup is actually for the better. Amazon Prime Video has been rumoured to have secretly implemented a delay in an effort to curb “review-bombing” and other bad-faith reactions to their content, allowing for a more accurate rating system. Apparently successful thus far, since their most recent programme, A League of Their Own, received an average of 4.3 stars from viewers, as reported by Variety. When it comes to The Rings of Power, this series has been getting a lot of needless (and racist) abuse online owing to the fact that the series has cast individuals of colour in various parts.
There are some who are outraged by the fact that actors of colour are portraying Middle-Earth mythical in the series, which is an expansion of the universe J.R.R. Tolkien established in his works. Hence, it has led to a number of poor faith reviews breaking through. Unfortunately, this is now the norm for any property that includes even a little quantity of new elements in an otherwise existing universe. It happened lately with both Ms Marvel and the presently airing Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney At Law and so regrettably, it isn’t shocking that some are trying to do the same to The Rings of Power.
While the three-day window and screening procedure may have kept out those furious about the adjustments made to Tolkien’s universe for A League of Their Own, only time will tell if they were successful for The Hobbit. Fortunately, the programme is visually spectacular, entertaining, and features well-developed, interesting characters. In other words, Rings of Power is quite good. That doesn’t mean that racists and sexists aren’t going to racist and sexist their way into posting bad reviews just because they can. Even with the delay introduced by Prime Video, they might still attempt a review bomb.
We should find out for sure on September 4, when the delay period ends, but until then, we may discuss how great this is. In order to combat trolls and review bombing, review sites should incorporate a verification procedure similar to that of Prime Video. The Rings of Power is deserving of a good chance, therefore let’s hope this procedure has the same positive results for it that it did for A League of Their Own.