The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is an upcoming American action adventure drama fantasy television series based on stories by J. R. R. Tolkien, created by Patrick McKay and  J. D. Payne who wrote Flash Gordon. Produced by Amazon Studios, Harper Collins Publishers, and New Line Cinema for streaming platform Prime Video. Epic series is a prequel to the stories in JRR Tolkien’s books and Peter Jackson’s films, condensed for the series and not a direct continuation of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film trilogies.

 

Plot Summary

The Rings of Power epic series is set thousands of years before the events of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings novels and Jackson’s films. The series will take viewers during Second Age of Middle-earth when great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to destroy,  and the new evil emerged the land. It begins during a time of relative peace, will follow events and characters previously mentioned in the prologue of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, when middle earth’s transition from the time of peace to an endless war. The series centers around the forging of these rings of power and the eventual rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, and the last alliance between Elves and Men

NARRATOR:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky…Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone…Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die…One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne in the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.

 

Production is intended to evoke the film with similar production design and younger versions of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil.

 

Filming

Filming for the first eight-episode season shot in New Zealand with 22 casts and reportedly lasts 5 seasons where the films produced, from February 2020 to August 2021. In August 2021, Amazon announced that production for future seasons would take place in the United Kingdom. Filming for the second season is expected to begin by mid-2022.

The pilot entitled Shadow of the Past which is also the same name of the Chapter 2 of the Lord of the Rings book is directed by J. A. Bayona, director of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The first season will premiere on Prime Video on September 2, 2022.

 

Casting

The earlier setting will see familiar faces like young Galadriel played by Cate Blanchett the future Elven queen in Jackson’s films. For the series, Morfydd Clark plays a younger version of the royal elf, Galadriel back when she was leader of the northern armies. The young Elrond played by Hugo Weaving in Jackson’s films, for the series is played by Game of Thrones Robert Aramayo fixing the broken relationship between the elves and the dwarves of Khazad-dûm, elf Arondir played by Ismael Cruz Córdova, Benjamin Walker as High King Gil-galad, Nazanin Boniadi as Bronwyn, Maxim Baldry as Isildur ancestor of Aragorn, Charlie Vickers as Halbrand a fugitive from his own past, and Sophia Nomvete as the dwarven princess Disa. A brief glimpse of elven-king Gil-galad looking up in the sky with worry, in flames is the rumored Sauron the dark lord and creator of the rings of power and the one ring, and Elanor 'Nori' Brandyfoot ancestor of the Harfoot hobbits played by Markella Kavenagh.

 

Analysis

Hear of LOTR series coming out is exciting. Stated that the series is expected to be the most expensive TV show in history, with Amazon expected to spend at least $1 billion on its production.