At least not for the time being, Amazon doesn’t want to hear your Rings of Power opinions. The studio behind the highly anticipated new Lord of the Rings spin-off program suspended user reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for three days over the weekend, presumably to prevent its own fandom from review-bombing the series.
Since the show’s two-episode launch last Friday, about 20,000 viewers have rated it on Rotten Tomatoes, resulting in a dismal 39% audience score, which contrasts sharply with the show’s strong 84% critics score. A source at Amazon said that the review ban was put in place this summer for all Prime Video shows to help weed out trolls. However, that wouldn’t explain why the review ban was put in place halfway through the season, when the audience score had already started to drop, instead of right after the show’s premiere.
Indeed, a show like Rings of Power, a $1 billion spin-off gamble for Amazon that centers on a female character, has the most diverse cast in the franchise’s history, and carries one of the zeitgeist’s most rabid fan bases, is likely to be review-bombed (i.e., a coordinated effort from a fan base to deluge a work with bad scores online due to some gripe, often racist or sexist, with how it fits into the plot).
However, whether the show is being review-bombed or Amazon is merely leveraging the phenomenon to protect itself from reasonably disappointed fans is debatable. Some of the online conversation surrounding the show has centered on thinly veiled racist fury over things like Black elves in the show (naturally, algorithms put divisive takes, which create online engagement, to the top).
However, on Rotten Tomatoes, where Amazon is focusing its efforts, the negative reviews appear to be primarily true concerns about what viewers perceive to be a mediocre and overpriced show. The most suspect aspect is that all negative written reviews of the show on IMDb, which Amazon owns, have been removed from the site. All that remains are mostly positive assessments of the series.
It’s difficult to oppose taking action against online trolls, but one could also consider this as another move by the world’s largest firm to force its way into a new element of cultural dominance. Prime Video has already recorded a whopping 25 million viewers on premiere day, the platform’s largest opening ever for what is widely regarded as the most costly season of television in history. It would now prefer not to see any supporters, whether acting in good faith or not, showing their displeasure.