Breaking Down Everything The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Trailer Just Revealed
One does not simply walk into Mordor. Instead, to really understand what you're dealing with, you have to travel back thousands of years before the mighty Fellowship ever came together on their mission (... quest ... thing) to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom and defeat Sauron once and for all. Luckily for us all, that's exactly what Amazon's "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" series is planning to do. After years of secrecy and speculation, the dam has finally begun to burst in recent months and information on this new take on Middle-earth has grown from a trickle to ... well, not quite the raging river that drowned Isengard just yet, but perhaps the one that put those Ringwraiths (briefly) out of commission? Yeah, let's go with that.
Amazon made waves (see what I did there?) when they gave us our first look at the then-untitled series back in 2021, though we were left to our own devices in parsing out all the hidden details and clues concerning what the show has in store for us. Today, however, the newly-announced title and accompanying trailer has finally given us our strongest and most reliable roadmap thus far. If you're a little overwhelmed by the daunting prospect of figuring out where, when, and what events this series will portray compared to Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, or if the diehard fans out there merely want some more validation that their predictions are on the right track, then you've come to the right place.
Join us as we dive deep into "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" and attempt to lay out everything that the title, the announcement video, and the press release all reveal about this thrilling new era of stories set in Middle-earth.
Familiar Territory
Right off the bat, the early seconds of the clip put us on solid and recognizable ground, particularly for those familiar with both author J.R.R. Tolkien's landmark fantasy series and Peter Jackson's live-action adaptation. Eager fans, many of whom have been hunting for the slightest hint about the direction that "The Rings of Power" will take, couldn't have missed the implication of choosing Morfydd Clark — rumored to portray a young Galadriel in this series — to recite the voiceover narration that guides us through the title announcement. Reminiscent of Cate Blanchett's Galadriel becoming the very first voice we hear in the opening sequence of "The Fellowship of the Ring," somberly laying out the history of the Ring and Sauron's rise to power in Middle-earth long before, Clark definitely sounds like she's channeling a very similar sort of energy to create a thematic bridge between the two properties. But not a directly canonical one, as this series remains obligated to avoid directly referencing the Jackson movies.
The score, too, adds even more of a subtle connection between this new series and the famous Middle-earth movies that everyone on the planet is most familiar with. We previously brought you the news that Howard Shore, the masterful composer of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, was in talks to return for the same duties on "The Rings of Power." Though it's unclear if he had a hand in this announcement video or if this is merely a placeholder musical theme that will be replaced in the show itself, the opening notes in the trailer sure seem to evoke Shore's memorable motif for the One Ring.
To some, it might seem counterintuitive to even subconsciously bring to mind the unparalleled heights of Jackson's trilogy, but it does make a certain amount of sense to give fans a solid foundation on which to build their understanding of this never-before-seen period in Middle-earth history. Set in the Second Age, thousands and thousands of years before the events of "The Lord of the Rings," casual viewers could quickly find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer amount of lore that Tolkien packed into these stories, much of which will be pulled from the appendices he included at the end of "The Return of the King." Time will tell if using the familiar to introduce something brand-new will pay off.
What's in a Name?
Though Amazon made us wait quite some time to discover the title (and, admittedly, it does sound a little generic and focus-tested), the name itself at least offers some valuable insights into the main thrust of the story that the creative team will tell in this series. As the official press release teases:
"...the significance behind the subtitle will not be lost on J.R.R. Tolkien fans, foreshadowing an epic story that welds the major events of Tolkien's Second Age together: the forging of the iconic rings."
Those who've brushed up on their Tolkien lore (or, alternately, just paid attention during the extremely efficient prologue preceding the main storyline of "The Fellowship of the Ring") already know that Sauron's initial rise to power stretches back millennia, back when he still had human form (as opposed to that big, flaming eye stuck on top of his tower in Mordor) and was gifted with the ability to seduce powerful individuals with little more than his voice. The title of this new series turns our assumptions into all but confirmation: Sauron will appear in the flesh and at the height of his powers as "Annatar" in "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power."
As summarized in the trailer narration, taken directly from Tolkien's "Ring Verse" poem in the books, we can expect the series to cover how Sauron commissioned a total of 19 Rings from the Elves (after teaching them his skills in the first place under the guise of friendship) that would allow their wearers to perform extraordinary feats, such as creating the Elven realms of Rivendell and Lothlórien or helping the Dwarves accrue their great wealth. Once Sauron forged his own additional Ring that would control the others, however, the Elves wearing the Three Rings immediately became aware of his deception and his evil intentions.
Honestly, the mind reels at the nerdy implications of the five seasons of this series possibly addressing the history of Sauron openly warring against the perceptive Elves, recovering those Rings, and gifting them to the races of Dwarves and Men — the latter of which directly leads to the creation of the villainous Ringwraiths. "The Lord of the Rings" mostly brushed over all the complexities and conflicts of this period of time, but the Amazon series will have plenty of time to sink its teeth into this untold story.