Elon Musk Slams Amazon’s ‘Lord of The Rings’ Series: “Tolkien Is Turning In His Grave”

Notable is Musk’s long-running rivalry and feud with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. This rivalry has intensified as Musk and Bezos have their own Blue Origin and SpaceX. This enmity has seen Tesla CEO habitually trolling or making slurs against Bezos’ companies and the two richest people in the world.

Trolls also have concerns about the series’ non-white characters. 

Rings of Power is a huge success for Amazon. scored 25 million viewers in the first episode, making it Prime Video’s highest-rated premiere. The show has received positive reviews from critics, boasting an 84 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes as well as 71 percent on Metacritic. The audience scores have been low, leading to accusations of review bombing.

Musk’s ranting echos many of the online criticisms that the show has received from trolls, who have taken issue with Rings centered the show around Galadriel.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Richard Newby wrote about the backlash against the show’s portrayal of non-white characters.

Newby wrote, “At the point, I have heard every argument against why castmembers Lenny Henry and Ismael Cordova, Sara Zwangobani Sara Zwangobani Maxine Cunliffe, Maxine Cunliffe, Nazanin Bioniadi, Sara Zwangobani, Maxine Cunliffe, Maxine Cunliffe, and Sophia Nomvete should not play harfoots or elves or even humans in the Middle-earth, where Amazon’s series is set.” The most common complaint is that Tolkien did not include people of color into his stories. This is not true. Harfoots are often described as having “browner skin”. Tolkien did not make it a point to describe skin colors, although he sometimes used the broad-ended “fairer that …” option.