It’s not long now until we head back to the land of elves, goblins and second breakfasts, with The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power heading to Amazon Prime Video this September. As you can tell by the issue of Empire that’s currently on sale, sporting three (yes, three) newsstand covers featuring brand new characters from the Rings universe (order a copy here), we’re really quite excited about going (there and) back again to Middle-earth. And now, thanks to Prime’s latest oh-so-short teaser released today, we’re more intrigued than ever. There’s a full minute-long sneak peek available to Prime Video subscribers now, but a short teaser for that teaser is available to view below for anyone who doesn’t have a Prime account.
The full sneak peek, coming in at just under 60 seconds, doesn’t give much away – but it does give us our first proper glimpse at Lenny Henry in action as Sadoc Burrows, a Harfoot (from which Hobbits are descended), as he delivers an ominous warning: “The skies are strange”. He’s not wrong, as the rest of the teaser sees several other characters – including Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel, Benjamin Walker’s High King Gil-galad, Owain Arthur’s Prince Durin IV and Markella Kavenagh’s Elanor ‘Nori’ Brandyfoot staring up at the sky, watching a comet fly through the clouds and smashing into Middle-earth.
Given the sheer scale of Tolkien’s world and the range of peoples included in it, it’s interesting to see them all united by this flaming ball of fire soaring overhead. Is the comet somehow related to the creation of those titular powerful rings? In the previous trailer, we’ve seen Galadriel on some kind of perilous journey, scaling a wall of ice – could she be making her way to the comet crash site? We’ll find out when The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power arrives on Prime Video on 2 September – and keep your eyes peeled for a brand new teaser trailer landing on 14 July.