The Amazon Prime series Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power has been called a must succeed from insiders at the company. In what many are calling a desperate attempt to succeed, fan reviews of the series episodes are now blocked for three days following an episode release. The official reason stated has to do with avoiding Review Bombing, which is the practice of a coordinated group giving negative scores to something for reasons other than the strict content of the show. This practice of blocking reviews has only lead to the series, and Amazon as a whole, getting mocked on social media.

Amazon blocking #RingsofPower reviews for 72 Hours! They want to prevent "Review Bombing" #Cowards pic.twitter.com/TTfto0rvuQ

— G33KED (@G33ked_TV) September 5, 2022

Power of the ring is so amazing that Amazon is blocking negative reviews. 🤣😂 pic.twitter.com/UDVaAnFUOc

— ᴏᴢ ᴇsᴘɪɴᴏʟᴀ (@oejunior) September 5, 2022

Rotten Tomatoes just deleted over 300 reviews to raise the score of Rings of Power slightly. Fixing the score in real time. pic.twitter.com/TJEQ21KOYd

— HvB (@HAWTToys) September 2, 2022

Amazon will never admit that Rings of Power is a flop if it does flop. They'll pay for the usual shill articles boasting about viewer count. Then the review bombing articles. Then more articles about racism and sexism harming the shows reception. The same old script.

— Weaponized Nerd Rage (@WeaponizedRage) September 2, 2022

While there was a focus on the review blocking and Amazon, the broader conversation became about the quality of the show itself, with a lot of people weighing in on what they thought of the first two episodes. Chief critic amongst the masses is, no surprise, Elon Musk, who was quick to write out his thoughts on the show and tweet them out, drawing both admiration and ire from his fellow twitter enjoyers. Amidst the decriers, however, one shining example of a writer defending other writers could be seen with Neil Gaiman coming to the defense of the show, with a boost of fresh clout from his own show The Sandman being very well received on Netflix.

Tolkien is turning in his grave

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2022

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. https://t.co/WpyXhQlqIh

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) September 6, 2022

The woke Ring's Of Power has a 37% audience approval score on Rotten Tomatoes, but Amazon is blocking an avalanche of negative reviews.

— doneee (@dnovakart) September 5, 2022

Bezos seeing the intial IMDB reviews for Rings of Power trickle in after the betting the farm on a TV series pic.twitter.com/fHWUno5RNd

— ExitMultiple (@ExitMultiple) September 2, 2022

However, the news brought on quite a bit of defenders of the show, and Amazon's brave attempt at injecting more Tolkien works into internet culture. Looking over reviews that have already been placed for the first episode, or by looking at other properties that have been review bombed, there is an upwell of momentum in favor of the show surviving the three day review block unscathed, with plenty of fans continuing to enjoy the content despite the grumblings of others online.

Rings of power and she hulk getting review bombed is the reason we speak up about these things. If you just don't like it because it's a bad show, fine. But the big chunk of those reviews are just racist trolls.
When folks like me bring it up in videos, this is what we mean 1/6🧵

— LegalKimchi Youtube (@legalkimchi) September 3, 2022

When you're a super real person with a super real review for the Rings of Power show pic.twitter.com/cEWWDE0u1k

— Laura Shortridge-Scott 💙🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@DiscordianKitty) September 6, 2022

The Pilot of The Rings of Power is a monumental cinematic achievement. It’s almost a crime to experience this on streaming and not on the big screen.

The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous and it’s a welcome return to the world of LotR.

Why are people review bombing?

— Ω Ryan Ω #RebelMoon Era (@Snyder_Cut_240) September 3, 2022

All I want is a thoughtful review of Rings of Power on YouTube but instead I am bombarded with this dumbass bullshit. pic.twitter.com/QMFDh681wx

— ATAT Chat (@ATATChat) September 5, 2022