That's online trolls and not snow trolls, FYI
The streaming service is holding off publishing user reviews for three days to wade through all of the unprecedented negative "reviews".
It's only been four days since its release, and 'The Lord of the Rings' prequel series hasn't had it easy. Word has emerged that 'The Rings of Power' has been "review bombed" by trolls and those who haven't even watched the first two episodes of the series.
The result is that Prime Video has put a new review system in place for all of its new TV shows and movies, which will see a three-day delay on users being able to write reviews of new releases. This new system was quietly introduced for the release of 'A League of Their Own' reboot series and will continue with each new release going forward.
It's quite an undertaking, but each user critique will be evaluated to determine whether it’s a genuine review or something created by a troll or a bot; 'A League of Their Own' was review bombed for the show having political, diverse and queer representation at the forefront, while 'The Rings of Power' was also targeted for having diverse and female-led characters that aren't "true" to J.R.R. Tolkien's works.
'The Rings of Power' review bombing, however, doesn't match up with the series' season premiere on Friday last. The prequel series, which begins thousands of years before 'The Hobbit' and focuses on the heroes of Middle-earth's Second Age, became Prime Video's most-watched debut ever. Worldwide viewing figures shows that the first two episodes were viewed 25 million times. Clearly, the show is a success even with trolls wanting to drag it down to the dark depths of the Misty Mountains.
Having only watched the first two episodes of the series before release, we loved the magic and the charming introduction to this (mostly) new batch of characters, finding ourselves eager to see how the remainder of the six-episode series turns out. We awarded it four stars, while most other critic reviews were also extremely favourable. However, trolls have indeed review bombed the series, and according to Rotten Tomatoes, it has an audience review score of 39% (opposite an 84% critics score).