We’ve spent years scrabbling around for the merest hint of information about Amazon’s long-awaited, much-hyped, considerably-expensed series playing in JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth, like Bilbo Baggins scrabbling around for the One Ring in Gollum’s cave. And now, the wait is through: the first trailer for what we now know to be called Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power has finally arrived, and a new era of the Tolkien’s fantasy land is about to begin. Get ready for elves, dwarves, and a whole lot of rings of power – plus a very familiar elven warrior, and a hand that implies in the involvement of Hobbits… Watch the first teaser here.
Well, that all looks suitably Middle-earthian, doesn’t it? There’s an epic water-based kingdom, epic grassy hillsides, and epic rainy battles with golden-armoured elves. In a word, it looks… well, epic. Amazon has spent a fortune on this that even Smaug would covet, and all that dosh is on the screen. While much of the trailer belongs to Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel – who very much seems to be in the thick of it here, climbing up icy cliff-faces and getting stuck into the action stuff – there are hints of rising conflicts between the factions of Middle-earth, a fiery scene that brings to mind Mount Doom, some slick slow-mo arrow firing, and some blacksmithing that might just be the forging of the titular rings themselves. All that, and a tiny hand at the end hints that there may be Hobbits in the mix here too.
As the inter-titles explain, this one does indeed come before King, before Ring, and before Fellowship – this is the Second Age of Middle-earth (Peter Jackson’s Hobbit and LOTR trilogies were set in the Third Age), an era thousands of years prior the stories of Bilbo and Frodo. Instead, it concerns the original rise of Sauron, the forging of the many rings of power (three for the elves, seven for the dwarves, and nine for men, and one for the dark lord), and everything that kicked off as a result. For more, see the opening prologue of Fellowship Of The Ring.
The series has JD Payne and Patrick McKay on lord as show runners, with JA Bayona directing the opening episodes, with others directed by Wayne Che Yip and Charlotte Brändström. The series is confirmed to begin streaming on 2 September this year, bringing – as the trailer has it – “wonders in this world beyond our wandering”. Who’s ready for a whole new unexpected journey?