The Lord of the Rings: Amazon Suspends User Reviews for Rings of Power
As has happened with other recent streaming releases, Amazon Prime Video's latest series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has found itself the target of review-bombing by some unhappy campers. The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Amazon is fighting this by suspending user reviews for the series on the Amazon landing page/Prime Video app, preventing anyone from leaving a rating on it at all. As of this writing, the series has an 84% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a promising number compared to its Audience Score of 38% featuring such choice reviews from trolls like: "an affront to true fans, the person responsible for this disaster should be arrested."
In the past Amazon Prime has leaned into the negative review bombing by certain sects of fandom, even marketing multiple seasons of The Boys around the audiences that left one-star reviews for the hit TV series (currently filming its fourth season). With The Rings of Power though the series marks a giant investment by Amazon the likes of which they haven't committed to since entering the streaming game. It was previously reported that just to obtain the rights for The Lord of the Rings that Amazon spent a quarter of a billion dollars, which coupled with production costs in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and marketing the TV series in the modern era, puts spending on the series in the hundreds of millions of dollars, all before one episode has even premiered.
It's worth noting that even if the series is being review bombed, it will eventually taper off as denizens of those particular corners of the internet get bored and move on to the next thing. THR notes that while She-Hulk was the most recent victim of this practice by some trolls, the audience score for the series has risen as each new episode has premiered on Disney+. Amazon may not allow user reviews on Prime Video for the series until several episodes have been released, and perhaps after they're certain that some folks have found a new target to complain about online. https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-lord-of-the-rings-amazon-suspends-user-reviews-for-rings-of-power/
