> I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing.

I don't 100% agree on your take that Tolkein's stories were outright chauvanistic, but I do agree that the tone of the show is different to the books and the movies to its detriment. Rings of Power does not feel like an Epic in the genre sense, like Beowulf, which was a genre and style that Tolkein knew very well. The show feels far too...casual, the dialogue too sitcom-y at times (the dwarf scenes are brutal), and the world too clean and empty. When there are "epic" scenes, they end up feeling more like Disney or power rangers stuff (akin to Legolas riding the shield down the steps, I must admit).

While the effects are, at times, fairly incredible,I also think the writing has been an obvious weakness. The show is just kind of floating along in permanent exposition land. Only when a certain "dark land" is finally created does it actually start to have any stakes at all, but that is 5/6s of the way through the season already. By focusing on 5 distinct storylines for most of the show they keep everything in the shallows.