Elon Musk’s verdict on Amazon’s massive budget drama series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power? “Tolkien is turning in his grave”.
The Tesla CEO took to Twitter to slam the series with a pair of short tweets. The second read: “Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice.”
Regardless of Musk’s views, The Rings of Power has been a hit for Prime Video, with data earlier this week revealing the J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay co-created show took more than 25 million viewers in its first day. This marked the best performance for an Amazon original ever. The eight-episode first season will run until October 14.
Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2022
Musk, who’s currently tangled in a web trying to exit his proposed $44BN takeover of social site Twitter, has been in competition with Amazon founder and Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos for years and regularly trolls his businesses on social media. Bezos has responded in kind several times over the years.
The billionaires have both spent huge sums on their spaceflight businesses – Musk owns SpaceX and Bezos founded Blue Origin – and have often criticized each others’ operations. The pair has variously swapped places as the planet’s wealthiest person, but Musk currently owns that title with a net worth of about $254BN.
The Rings of Power series lead Galadriel, played by Morfydd Clark, has herself been the target of criticism from online trolls, with complaints generally claiming the regal nature of the character in the original J.R.R. Tolkin novels and Peter Jackson films has been replaced by an all-action warrior elf queen. The series is set thousands of years before the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit stories and features a much younger Galadriel, which in theory provides context on the differences.
You can follow the latest behind-the-scenes goings on and discussion around the series in our weekly Inside the Ring episode aftershow. Click here for the latest.