A new trailer for Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power recently released, giving Tolkien fans an exciting glimpse into the next live-action chapter in J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic saga.
Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power features a large ensemble cast, with showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay behind the scenes. Director J.A Bayona will direct the first two episodes of the first season. Season one will run for eight episodes, but it is only the first part in a five-season commitment from Amazon Prime Video.
The first season alone has a budget that, when accounting for the purchasing rights, production costs, budgeting, etc., well exceeds the 1 billion dollar mark. Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power is not only the most expensive gamble in Amazon Prime Video’s library, it’s also set to become one of the most costly, if not the single most costly production in TV history.
J.R.R. Tolkien began work on the epic saga of Middle Earth years before the release of this book, but when The Hobbit was published in the 1930’s, the world fell in love with what would become the Lord Of The Rings franchise.
With the publishers hot for a sequel, J.R.R. Tolkien put together a grandly unique second installment full of myths, poetry, lore, world-building and more fantastic content that took place before the events of The Hobbit and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. He called it The Silmarillion, and the publishers rejected it at the time. While the more popular books and subsequent film adaptations take place during the “Third Age”, many of the stories found within The Silmarillion took place during the First and Second Ages.
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The epic stories of The Silmarillion take place over thousands of years, following many characters of many different species and backgrounds. Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power is not a direct adaptation of that book, but rather a new story inspired by those legends, that will loosely adapt some of them. In order to tell the story in a way that will allow human characters to survive from episode to episode or season to season, instead of dying of old age as a result of the massive time jumps of the source material, the showrunners decided to compress the timeline of events down greatly.
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While this may be a difficult pill to swallow for some Tolkien purists who would prefer to see the original works adapted more faithfully, it may work to the betterment of The Rings Of Power in the long run. The incredible characterization of LOTR characters such as Frodo, Sam, Aragon and Gandalf, and the relationship that viewers built with them over the course of the trilogy is a big part of what made Lord Of The Rings so massively successful. If we are only able to grow attached to loosely immortal beings like The Elves due to the nature of the timeline, the quality of the ensemble would likely suffer as a result.
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Main Teaser
Another question that this trailer raises is just how confined the story will be to the Second Age. Work on The Rings Of Power was only made possible when the Tolkien Estate put the rights to the Second Estate up for sale, initiating a Hollywood bidding war that Amazon Prime would walk out on top of. We also know that a Tolkien scholar was released from the project after giving unauthorized interview comments about what this TV show could and could not adapt from the source material.
Truthfully, only Amazon Prime and the Tolkien Estate know the fine print of the matter, but the trailer gives us breadcrumbs like the trees that lit the world before the sun rose, as they are usually associated with the First Age, not the Second.
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But questions about intellectual property agreements aside, the trailer for Rings Of Power is put together magnificently. It carries the same air of fantastical escape and lore as the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy, while carving out it’s own new feel simulatenously. We’re treated to some intriguing shots of the woodland harfoots, who are sort of like proto-Hobbits.
Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel may not be the technical star of this show, as it features a wide cast of characters, but this new trailer certainly treats her as leading lady. Her fight against darkness and epic quest remain shrouded in mystery for now, but fans can’t wait to learn more about her exploits on Rings Of Power.
Any Tolkien adaptation faces a great deal of uncertainty before release. The epic saga of Middle Earth is one of the most beloved myths of modern times, and those who love it would rather see it untouched than adapted poorly. Many creators and artists have tried to adapt this work for radio, film, and other mediums, to varying degrees of success. But almost no one except for Peter Jackson has attempted to tell this story on such a massive scale before Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power.
Hopefully they’re up to the task, but we won’t know until Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power premieres September 2, 2022. What did you think of the new trailer for Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or on our social media!
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