It had a premiere date before it had an official title, but now it’s got both: Amazon Prime Video’s J.R.R. Tolkien series is now The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
The announcement came in the form of a short video showing the forging of a ring, with a voice reciting some very familiar lines:
Buy the Book
The Starless Crown
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.
It ends, notably, before the lines about the One Ring (“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, / One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them”). We’re back in the Second Age, which Amazon describes as “an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.”
Intriguingly, the molten metal in the video is a practical effect, not CGI. Variety notes, “Expert foundryman and metal artist Landon Ryan worked together with director Klaus Obermeyer and legendary Hollywood SFX pioneer and artist Douglas Trumbull to capture the molten metal moving through carvings in a sustainably sourced slab of redwood using a 4K camera system.”
According to showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay, “The Rings of Power unites all the major stories of Middle-earth’s Second Age: the forging of the rings, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the epic tale of Númenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. Until now, audiences have only seen on-screen the story of the One Ring—but before there was one, there were many… and we’re excited to share the epic story of them all.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Prime Video on September 2nd. It’s already been renewed for a second season.
I am insanely curious about what year we’re starting off in here. At the time of the forging of the Rings of Power, Sauron is not exactly a household name. To Men he is largely unknown. He may be remembered by the Elves, but not until he completes the One Ring itself does his identity become clear. There is, up until then, merely a nameless Shadow on the world, and no one connects the dots between Annatar, the Shadow, and Sauron of old.
Way to bite off more than you can chew! Unless they’re already planning on multiple seasons, there is way too much to cover!
About time they got a title. Who was doing the horrible accent in the voice over?
@3 – Why wouldn’t there be? Amazon didn’t pay all that money for the rights just to produce one season.
To that point, srEDIT, I would love it if they leaned into the chronology, and truly depicted things by Tolkien’s timeline and largely from the Elvish point of view. That is, we see Celeborn and Galadriel leave Eregion and settle in Lórien. The Rings of Power aren’t underway for another 150 years. Then the Three Rings aren’t even finished by Celebrimbor until another 90 years goes by. Then 10 years more go by, and the One Ring is made, and Sauron is unmasked. Then, mad that his scheme didn’t work, he wages war against the Elves after another 90 years by. It’ll be another 558 years after that before the Nazgûl appear.
Meanwhile, the actors playing the Elves all remain the same, but the Men in their lives are different every episode because generations have gone by! So the human actors only show up for an episode or two. Now, the Númenóreans don’t age as rapidly so they can stick around for quite a while, but we could still watch them grow up and see them in different stages of life. And at no point in all of this time would the Three Rings be used; they’re just hidden away at that point, all the way through the end of the Second Age and the Last Alliance.
How fascinating and appropriate to the dynamics of Tolkien’s world would that be?
That said, they probably won’t do that at all. They’ll likely squeeze the timeline and make it all happen rather quickly. And the Three will get used and have water, air, and fire combat-powers and such. And it’ll aggravate all us nerds. :P
@JLaSala That would be amazing! I would absolutely love to see Amazon take that tack, but you’re right, they probably won’t. It really would help to communicate that vast amounts of time we’re working with in Tolkien’s legendarium (not quite as vast as what Steven Erikson is working with, but still).
Only 7.5 months to wait!
@ ragnarredbeard The voice is that of Morfydd Clark aka Galadriel.
@6 That was my thought. There are a couple natural starting points for a Second Age story if it’s gonna go the distance.
If it’s about Sauron:
SA 500 when Sauron arises again or SA 1000 for the construction of Barad-Dur
If it’s about the line of Aragorn:
SA 600 with the arrival of the first ships of the Numenor
If it’s about the Elves:
SA 1350, your suggestion of Celeborn & Galadriel arriving in Lothlorien.
If it’s specifically about the Rings of Power
SA 1500 when they’re forged or SA 1600 when the One Ring is completed.
I really hope that they start at 500 with Sauron’s stirring. It’d miss Gil-Galad founding Noldorin & the Dwarves consolidating in Moria, but it could be a villain protagonist driven show. I suspect, though, that you’re right in the main that it’ll be 1600 and a fast-forward to 1693 and the War of the Elves and Sauron with magic shooting out of the Three Rings.
@6. JLaSala: This is a mighty fine idea, though one would suggest using the same actors (rotating through varied roles) for the Race of Men, to help keep the cast to manageable proportions and guarantee a certain consistency to the performances.
I still like my idea better: Lord of the Rings: The Second Age. It tricks normies into thinking it’s a post-LOTRs sequel, while giving nerds the smug satisfaction of knowing it’s really a prequel.
At any rate, I’m unlikely ever to watch it, the entertainment industry being what it’s become and all…
Morfydd Clark aka Galadriel -> The voice is all wrong. There is no depth. There is no power to it.
I’m not really a fan of the voiceover just because it lacks the proper gravitas (and honestly, I’m kind of over the Morrrrthdoorrrrth pronunciation. Like, yes, there is a bit of a trill there but this just felt really overdone).
Anyway, I am definitely a bit leery as I wasn’t really happy with Wheel of TIme, but it’s a different creative team, and the benefit here is that even though we do have SOME writings from this time, a lot of what Tolkien wrote about the second age was in flux, had several versions (which version of Galadriel and Celeborn will we get, ha) or just isn’t super fleshed out. So I can handle a little more flexibility here as long as they don’t vary wildly in tone.