Lord of the Rings series

Book fans can't come to an agreement on new Middle-earth series.

Agreeing that the “spirit” of Tokkien has been captured, @suzannahtweets wrote: “I’m far less concerned about little lore details than I am about the spirit. @marklee3d added: “Rings of Power has done a great job of capturing the feel of Tolkien's world. I’m relieved AND happy about this.” [Terms of use,](https://www.independent.co.uk/service/user-policies-a6184151.html) [Cookie policy](https://www.independent.co.uk/service/cookie-policy-a6184186.html) and [Privacy notice.](https://www.independent.co.uk/service/privacy-policy-a6184181.html) [Privacy policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en) and [Terms of service](https://policies.google.com/terms?hl=en) apply. First up, the praise. It looks good as hell.” [here](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/rings-of-power-lord-of-the-rings-series-review-amazon-prime-video-b2158125.html), and a recap of the opening episodes [here](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/lord-of-the-rings-of-power-episode-1-2-recap-b2158404.html). [The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power](/topic/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power) is immensely dividing [JRR Tolkien](/topic/jrr-tolkien) readers. [The Rings of Power](/topic/the-rings-of-power) is splitting fans right down the middle.

The caring may come in subsequent episodes. You can't help but root for the interspecies romance between the human Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) and Silvan elf ...

The series is indeed a visual feast with a feel for the majesty of nature, seen in waterfalls and frozen mountainsides, that stands in stark contrast to the clash of battle. So far, the series falls short on humor, surprise and the scrappy enthusiasm Jackson brought to his "Rings" party. It's the promise of other worlds that "Rings" is betting on to keep us coming back for more. Here, the focus is mainly on Galadriel (misogynists be damned!) as she leads her army against the all-seeing Sauron, who wants to forge the rings of power to lure the rulers of Middle-earth to the dark side. For now we can say that the first episodes are drop-dead gorgeous, though plagued by pokey pacing, what with all the table setting needed to set the plot wheels in motion. The bigger the screen the better.

The Rings of Power will feature Hull actor Rob Aramayo as a popular Tolkien character in the new series set thousands of years before the trilogy. Before it's ...

He is set to play the crucial character of Elrond in the new series originally played by Hugo Weaving in the film series. Fans are expecting a magical experience as they revisit Middle-Earth in the brand-new series. New episodes will then be available to stream every Thursday until October 13. The 29-year-old actor has previously starred in other fantasy series such as the huge hit Game of Thrones from 2016 to 2017. Rob has had a love for acting ever since he was young, joining Hull Truck Youth Theatre when he was just ten years old. Before it's even begun, the series has already commissioned five seasons which were rumoured to cost over $1 billion to produce.

This was reportedly the demand that Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos made of the development team at Amazon Studios five years ago. At the time, the online retail ...

The first two episodes of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will be released at 9 p.m. EDT on Fridays for the rest of the season. That the end result is still this lively and colorful, despite that misconceived development process, isn’t just a testament to Amazon’s limitless coffers of cash, but to the clear passion and skill of this assembled creative team. Rings of Power has plenty of wonders to offer at the start. Tolkien](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/j-r-r-tolkien/)’s [Lord of the Rings](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/lord-of-the-rings/). Amazon showed the first two episodes to many critics (including this one) in movie theater settings, the better to emphasize those enormous production values; revisiting the series at home on a much smaller screen, some of the plots felt substantially less thrilling without that visual wow factor. Rings can be just as remarkable on a technical level with the intimate stuff as it is with the massive battles; an orc gradually entering a small house is chilling because of how the scene is shot and edited. Fortunately, the show has a promising collection of those, first and foremost its more aggro Galadriel. Galadriel, played by Cate Blanchett as a beatific and wise elf elder in the movies, is a (relatively) young woman and fierce warrior, played here by Morfydd Clark. House of the Dragon just notched the biggest premiere in HBO history and has already been renewed for a second season, so it’s safe to say that viewer appetite for Martin’s fictional universe has not yet ebbed. Back when Bezos’ order for his own Game of Thrones was first making the Hollywood rounds, it was fair to ask whether the audience was excited for fantasy shows in general, or for that fantasy show in particular. Between those two series and the continuation of Amazon’s translation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, the market will not lack for tales set in parallel worlds filled with magic, monsters, and/or giant flying creatures who breathe fire.

There's one character from The Rings of Power who, despite not making an appearance yet, has already got fans excited: Oren.

Fans of Game of Thrones may recognise Oren when he finally appears in the show. Benjen appeared in the show’s pilot episode, but then went missing beyond The Wall shortly afterwards. Fans who analysed the teaser trailers in detail have spotted a dark-haired character leading a band of Orcs up a stone staircase. For example, Lenny Henry portrays a Harfoot character named Sadoc Burrows, who never appears in works written by the late author. Posters of Oren that were published by Amazon in the run-up to the first season, which currently sits at 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, don’t give much away. Who is Oren in The Rings of Power?

An elf woman in silver armor and a long blonde braid in the middle of a. Galadriel's journey in "The Rings of Power" is quite different from her story in ...

In the end, The Rings of Power is both a tribute to Tolkien's work and an exercise in mythmaking, using works like the "Tale of Years" as a starting point. The Rings of Power doesn't re-adapt The Lord of the Rings. Its new characters and storylines present thoughtful additions to Tolkien's writings on the Second Age, and they fill in the blanks of the "Tale of Years" in ways that are simultaneously unexpected yet completely earned. Arwen and Aragorn's love in The Lord of the Rings is the most prominent example. Just because these characters are new to The Rings of Power doesn't mean they're without precedent in Tolkien's canon. The Rings of Power makes Galadriel the main character in a way she hasn't been before, examining her role as a commander and leader before becoming the Lady of Lórien. If The Rings of Power has to shift canon so we can explore these locations and so these characters can meet up, I don't mind. It's extremely important to Tolkien's mythos, and based on the trailers, it will play a big role in The Rings of Power. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. This allows them to flesh out the key milestones of Middle-earth in a way that Tolkien couldn't with just a timeline. However, not a lot of it is written out in detail — you can find a condensed timeline of these events in Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings, also known as the "Tale of Years." [The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power](https://mashable.com/article/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-review) are here, and they are nothing short of spectacular.

A women wearing armor and carrying a sword walks away from a burning building. Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) takes center stage in Amazon's new prequel series.

That hasn’t always been a bad thing; action and fantasy films embracing the nuances of morality and subverting the logic of cinema have led to some of the 21st century’s best filmmaking. And just as I often felt nervous while watching Game of Thrones whether it had a coherent endpoint in mind as it weaved and bobbed through Westeros, I worry that The Rings of Power will be stuffed with too many invented subplots and side characters that ultimately don’t have anything to do with the story besides adding more run time. Among the hobbit-like Harfoots, we see the spunky young Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), and in the world of men, there’s the healer and single mother Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), who strikes up a romance with a warrior elf Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova). In short, it explores Middle Earth’s Second Age, which takes place thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and is not based on any of Tolkien’s novels, but rather the information gleaned in their appendices. To answer the question: The Rings of Power is not like Game of Thrones, at least not in that way. Anonymous sources told the fan blog [The One Ring that](https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2021/07/20/110907-spy-report-incredible-details-from-amazons-lord-of-the-rings-characters-sexless-nudity-halflings/) while there will be nudity in the series, it would be “sparse and not sexualized.” Happily, many of the most important ones are women: Amazon’s series centers on a younger Galadriel, played by Morfydd Clark (Cate Blanchett in the films), a warrior elven princess intent on avenging her brother’s death by Sauron. [published](https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2138&context=mythlore) a scathing critique of the women of J.R.R. (For context about what happens to the women of GoT, in the first two episodes of House of the Dragon, there’s a brutally graphic childbirth scene in which [both mother and infant die](https://www.vox.com/culture/23316570/house-of-the-dragon-heirs-review-recap-childbirth-scene), and in the second, a grown man almost [marries a 12-year-old girl](https://www.vox.com/culture/23327326/house-of-the-dragon-episode-2-rogue-prince-review-recap-rhaenyra-alicent-rhaenicent).) “It is technically an epic fantasy adventure, but I don’t think it hews to the same kind of ideas of masculinity and power that a lot of these stories traditionally do,” the writer Karen Han told the Had Game of Thrones cast such a shadow over the entertainment world that a high fantasy series without sex and gore was considered unprofitable? Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

But as might be the case with "House of the Dragon," a prequel series to a beloved fantasy property might spook off newcomers unfamiliar with the original ...

The showrunners for "Rings of Power" are J.D. Of course, Elves are immortal in Tolkien's world, and their participation in Second Age events was canonized in "The Silmarillion." There are Dwarves, too -- King Durin III and his brood -- who live in prosperity in the city of Moria before an unfortunate encounter with a (It's worth noting that Tolkien's son made these comments around the release of Jackson's first "Hobbit" film, which received far more middling reviews than his first three films in Middle-earth.) Oh, and don't expect immediate resolution to the series' storylines -- Payne told Amazon's cast list is exhaustive (but notably missing a few names, including that of the unknown actor thought to play Sauron). Whether you've pored over "The Silmarillion" repeatedly in advance of the new show or you don't know the difference between an Orc and an Ent (one's a goblinesque monster and the other is a talking, walking tree creature, for the record), here's what you need to know before you watch "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." She's back in the prequel, this time played by Morfydd Clark, and by the looks we've gotten of her in the trailers, she's just returned from battle when we catch up with her. We may or may not get to see the Lord of the Rings himself in his corporeal form -- Amazon is keeping mum on how he'll appear in the series, but he'll undoubtedly loom large over it. It's likely meant to be presented as a fictional historical account written by several authors -- possibly including one Bilbo Baggins -- that covers everything from the origin of Tolkien's world to its later ages. , the action is set in Middle-earth's Second Age, "thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Now is the Tolkienites' time to geek out --

Galadriel, who was played by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson's films, is essentially the protagonist of “The Rings of Power.” Much younger than when we know her ...

In keeping with the notion that the “Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” stories take place in a “post-apocalyptic” Middle-earth, the dwarves that we meet in “The Rings of Power” are absolutely living it up. The final thing to keep in mind as you’re watching the show is that “The Rings of Power” is playing the long game. Payne and Patrick McKay said at Comic-Con that the difference between the time period of “Rings of Power” – which is in the Second Age of Tolkien’s books – and that of “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” — which is in the third age — is the difference between a world flourishing in prosperity and a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Indeed, while the aesthetic of “The Rings of Power” is distinct, it does feel like it takes place in the same universe as the movies that fans hold so dear. There’s a prologue at the beginning of “The Rings of Power” that not only introduces the world, but also reveals that Sauron – you know, that big glowing eye from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy – previously rose to power, waged war and was pushed to retreat. [“Lord of the Rings” series](https://www.thewrap.com/tag/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/) is finally here, and odds are you have some questions.