Elon Musk is not a fan of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
The controversial Tesla CEO took to Twitter on Labour Day to slam the buzzworthy Prime Video series, claiming that creator J.R.R. Tolkien is “turning in his grave” over it.
“Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both. Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice,” tweeted Musk.
He’s referring to the Elven warrior played by Morfyyd Clark, who some have taken issue with for being a tough warrior. In Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, set thousands of years later, Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) is portrayed as a more regal and serene character.
It should be noted, though, that only two episodes of The Rings of Power‘s eight-episode first season have been released so far, and Amazon is planning at least four more seasons. Therefore, it’s quite premature to already be getting upset about the show’s depiction of characters.
In recent years, Musk has also leaned into his edgelord “anti-woke” persona, so it’s not entirely surprising that a powerful female character would bother him so much. It’s also unclear how much of Musk’s comments are driven by his feud with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Origin spaceflight company is a direct competitor to Musk’s own Space X. Musk is so juvenile as to wrongfully call a man a pedophile over a wounded ego, so it certainly doesn’t seem like it would be beneath him to also insult The Rings of Power to slight Bezos.
Musk isn’t the only one who’s taken umbrage over The Rings of Power. Over the past week, people have been review bombing the series, largely due to racist backlash over people of colour among the cast. This has led Amazon to add a 72-hour delay on Prime Video user reviews.
Of course, there are completely valid reasons to dislike anything, The Rings of Power included, but people like Musk certainly don’t seem to have any. As beloved The Sandman writer Neil Gaiman tweeted in response to all of this, “Elon Musk doesn’t come to me for advice on how to fail to buy Twitter, and I don’t go to him for film, TV or literature criticism.”
Image credit: Amazon
