Amazon will delay reviews of its $1 billion fantasy series "Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" in order to review the negative reviews.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, a source at Amazon said that reviews will be held for 72 hours "to help weed out trolls and to ensure each review is legitimate." The Reporter added that Amazon took this measure on all its shows during the summer.
But a day after the drop of the series' first two episodes, Rotten Tomatoes listed a critics' score of "84%," but an audience score of only "36%."
Most of the audience criticisms maintained that the show's story and characters were sticking points but pointed to the cinematography as a positive.
According to Reclaim the Net, reviews for the show on IMDB, which Amazon owns, are not much more favorable than an average score on Rotten Tomatoes. The IMDB score, which initially was 6.1 at the time of Reclaim the Net's reporting, now stands on Sunday at 6.8. The score is a mix, with the majority of reviews leaning toward a "1" or a "10."
It is not clear how Amazon will ensure reviews on its platform, Prime Video, are "legitimate."