You'll Never Believe What Amazon's 'Lord of the Rings' Series Is Going To Focus On

Lord of the Rings fans have been waiting for any of kind of news regarding Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series. It was announced a few weeks ago that the title of the series would be The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. And now, new developments have come out that have given fans a lot more details about the show.

One of these announcements was the release of character posters, some of which were very cryptic as to who they were. Then, vanityfair.com released an exclusive, giving more insight into the show than fans have gotten so far and, during the Super Bowl, fans finally got a teaser trailer that they have been waiting so long for. It didn’t give them much, but it was a little taste of what Middle Earth in this series is going to be.

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It was revealed that one of the main characters of the show will be a younger Galadriel, played by Morfydd Clark. In the series, she is certain that there is an evil looming closer than anyone realizes and this fight ends up with her adrift on a raft by Episode 2, where she meets Halbrand. Halbrand is a new character that has been introduced into the Tolkien universe. There are several new characters that are introduced in this series, and their announcement has been getting mixed reviews from fans.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is premiering on Prime Video on September 2 and will, currently, last 5 seasons and cost the studio well over $1 billion. Despite fans guessing that this series will be based on The Silmarillion, it will actually be more focused on the stories in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien wrote the appendices as extra stories for Middle Earth, expanding on storylines hinted at and talked about in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. It is expanded from some of the writings in The Silmarillion, and adds a lot of depth to the stories. The reveal that the series is focusing more on the appendices vs The Silmarillion has shocked many fans. We have also learned that almost all the characters in the story are new or mentioned in the appendices, with some of the characters in The Silmarillion not even mentioned so far in the Amazon series. It is unlikely at this point that we will see them as of right now.

However, they have announced that we will obviously be focusing on a younger Galadriel and there will be a younger Elrond in the series as well (played by Robert Aramayo), shown in the ancient Elven capital of Lindon. The series is supposed to be taking place after the destruction of Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, in the Second Age of Middle Earth. However, there are whispers of a new Dark Lord; the rise of Sauron. While Hobbits weren’t necessarily around during the Second Age, their ancestors, the Harfoots, were, as detailed by Tolkien in the appendices. Fans of Tolkien’s appendices and The Silmarillion will be excited to finally see Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) brought to life on screen since he has such a large part to play in the forging of the rings. Fans will also get to see some of Isildur’s (Maxim Baldry) rise, becoming a warrior before cutting the Ring off of Sauron’s hand and being corrupted by its power.

Peter Jackson, who directed The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit is not involved in this series, sadly. But much of what he did for the franchise is being used and reflected in the Amazon series. Weta Workshop, which was heavily involved in LOTR and The Hobbit, is also involved in this series. The showrunners are Patrick McKay and JD Payne who have worked together for awhile, but this series is their first big break, which is huge. Bryan Cogman, who worked on Game of Thrones is Co-Executive Producing. J.A. Bayona is directing the first two episodes and said this about being a part of the show:

“From the very beginning, I trusted these guys. I knew what they were going through and they knew what I was going through also, because can you imagine going back to such a beloved world and [facing] the high bar of the Peter Jackson movies? We were, all the time, very aware of the massive expectations.”

The series is focusing on multiple storylines, from Galadriel hunting down Morgoth’s allies who killed her brother, to the dwarves of Moria in its golden age, and the various elven clans. Not to mention, the storyline of the forging of the rings of power. Payne and McKay are no stranger to realizing what a big endeavor this show really is, with McKay saying:

"We know what it’s like to be anticipating something and to be terrified that it won’t be what you hope. We’ve been those guys many times over."

Many Tolkien scholars and fans have been worried that the show will be too much like Game of Thrones, especially when they hired an intimacy coordinator. But McKay says that it will not be that way at all, stating that their goal is;

"to make a show for everyone, for kids who are 11, 12, and 13, even though sometimes they might have to pull the blanket up over their eyes if it’s a little too scary. We talked about the tone in Tolkien’s books. This is material that is sometimes scary—and sometimes very intense, sometimes quite political, sometimes quite sophisticated—but it’s also heartwarming and life-affirming and optimistic. It’s about friendship and it’s about brotherhood and underdogs overcoming great darkness."

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power brings a diverse cast to Middle Earth, one that hasn’t been seen before. Ismael Cruz Córdova is playing a Silvan Elf named Arondir, and is the first person of color to play an elf onscreen in Tolkien’s world. Nazanin Boniadi, a British actor of Iranian heritage, will be playing Arondir's forbidden love intrest, the human healer, Bronwyn. Some fans have looked at this as strange since Tolkien already wrote an elf/human forbidden relationship. But the story of Beren and Luthien is so sacred to fans, and was to Tolkien himself, that perhaps not touching that for this series might be a good thing. Sir Lenny Henry is playing a Harfoot elder and is of Jamaican descent, and Sophia Nomvete is the first Black woman to play a dwarf (and the first female dwarf) in the Tolkien universe. She is playing a Dwarven princess named Disa. While some fans are upset that Disa isn’t pictured with a beard, like Gimli mentions in The Two Towers, there is no denying that it is still extremely exciting to see diversity in the cast of Tolkien characters. As Lindsey Weber, one of the executive producers for the show, said:

“It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like. Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their best work when they leave the isolation of their own cultures and come together.”

All these characters, along with Galadriel, Elrond, Halbrand, and more, were introduced in character posters and apparently are all major characters in this season of the show.

The first episode is titled Shadows of the Past and heavily hints at Sauron lurking in the distance, and that perhaps the war that was fought with Morgoth is far from over. While in the appendices and The Silmarillion, the events that are going to be shown in the show take place over thousands of years, Payne and McKay have compressed the timeline a bit to be able to tell what they wanted in the story. But, they were careful with how they approached it, with Payne stating:

“We talked with the Tolkien estate. If you are true to the exact letter of the law, you are going to be telling a story in which your human characters are dying off every season because you’re jumping 200 years in time, and then you’re not meeting really big, important canon characters until season four. Look, there might be some fans who want us to do a documentary of Middle Earth, but we’re going to tell one story that unites all these things.”

The teaser trailer that premiered during the Super Bowl showed fans more images of the characters that were introduced in the posters. It showed some pretty epic battle scenes, and some of what fans can presume is probably Galadriel and Halbrand on the raft in what vanityfair.com is saying is in the second episode of the series. There seemed to be some battle scenes and a magical creature of some sort as well. But unfortunately, it didn’t give us as much to go on as fans would have liked.

Many fans are cautiously optimistic about The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series. While it certainly seems like there will be major deviations from the text, which is concerning to some, it also seems like there will be some things that stay true to Tolkien’s story and vision. The big question remains; can Payne and McKay and the others truly capture Tolkien’s vision and essence of the work without messing up the stories of Middle Earth? It’s a lot to take on. As more and more information is released up until the actual premiere day, we shall see how much they actually did bite off and if they can, in fact, deliver on creating an epic fantasy masterpiece.

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Written by Elizabeth Dresdow

Source(s): Vanity Fair, YouTube

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