Elon Musk will not be giving Rings of Power a 5-star review.
The Tesla founder shared his thoughts on the Lord of the Rings prequel series on Twitter, writing that author J.R.R. Tolkien is "turning in his grave" over the adaptation. "Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both," Musk continued in a separate tweet. "Only Galadriel [Morfydd Clark] is brave, smart and nice."
However, people are taking this review with a grain of salt, as The Rings of Power is produced by Prime Video, a subdivision of Jeff Bezos' Amazon Prime. In addition to being among the wealthiest men alive, their respective companies SpaceX and Blue Origins are in a race to set up new satellites in outer space and send astronauts to the moon.
For this reason, Musk frequently trolls Bezos on social media. For example, when NASA chose SpaceX to lead the next mission to the moon instead of Blue Origins in April 2021, Musk tweeted, "Can't get it up (to orbit) lol."
Their rivalry, combined with The Rings of Power's success—the Amazon Original set records with its Sept. 2 premiere, garnering 25 million views in its first day—have people dismissing Musk's remarks as mere tabloid fodder.
The detractors to Musk's review include Good Omens author Neil Gaiman, who in tell people to disregard the review also highlighted the entrepreneur's complicated dealings with Twitter. "Elon Musk doesn't come to me for advice on how to fail to buy Twitter," Gaimain tweeted, "and I don't go to him for film, TV or literature criticism."
Gaiman is a big fan of all things Lord of the Rings and was even thanked by Tolkien's son Christopher Tolkien in the foreword to his 1990 book The War of the Ring. As such, fans are curious to know Gaiman's review of the prequel series, which he got to preview ahead of its premiere. His verdict? "Really, really fun," Gaiman tweeted Aug. 23.
"I remember buying The Silmarillion as a schoolboy when it was published and it very much not being the prequel I was hoping for," he continued. "This is the sort of thing I wanted to experience back then. I'll watch the whole series when it drops, with enthusiasm."
New episodes of The Rings of Power premiere Fridays on Prime Video.