Elon Musk on Monday said J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the "Lord of the Rings" series, is "turning in his grave" over Amazon Prime's new hit adaptation of the fantasy books "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power."
"Almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk or both," the Tesla CEO tweeted. "Only Galadriel is brave, smart and nice."
Galadriel is a female warrior elf who is the lead of the Amazon series and a character created by Tolkien.
He later added, "Those who claim any criticism of Rings of Power means you’re racist are outing themselves as closet racists."
Of the criticism from some fans that casting non-white characters wasn't true to Tolkien's world, Hollywood Reporter contributor Richard Newby argued, "The most common refrain is that Tolkien didn’t include people of color in his stories. Not only is this untrue, as harfoots are described as having ‘browner’ skin, but Tolkien didn’t often make a point to describe skin color."
Morfydd Clark, the actress who plays Galadriel, defended her character morphing into more of a warrior role than she was depicted in "The Lord of the Rings."
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"I would say that her serenity [in "Lord of the Rings"] is hard-earned," she said. "I don’t think you get to that level of wisdom without going through things. She actually speaks about with wisdom, there is a loss of innocence, which was a really good thing for me to find in the lore. Because, like, how young are you when you’re still thousands of years old? So it was thinking of what innocence she lost during this time."
"The Rings of Power" is a prequel series to "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings."
Musk is an avid sci-fi/fantasy reader and also frequently criticizes fellow billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos when he can.
The two also run rival space exploration businesses SpaceX and Blue Origin.
"The Rings of Power" is both the most expensive TV series ever made and boasted Amazon’s biggest premiere with more than 25 million viewers worldwide last Thursday.
Musk’s tweets echoed similar criticisms on Twitter but also had its detractors.
"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," "Good Omens" writer Neil Gaiman – who is not connected to the show – tweeted after being asked about Musk’s remarks by a fan.
