“Nothing is evil in the beginning” argues the latest look at the upcoming Amazon seriesThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Released viaTwitter, the brief new trailer offers another look at the big-budget fantasy series, which will explore the Second Age of Middle-earth before the fellowship was formed, the two towers fell, and the king returned.
Amazon Studios’forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’sThe HobbitandThe Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to 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.
Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breath-taking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of PowerWill Not Try to Compete with Peter Jackson’s Oscar-Winning Trilogy
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerhas a lot to live up to as it attempts to adapt the works of J.R.R. Tolkien following director Peter Jackson’s Academy Award-winning trilogy. To solve this, Executive ProducerPatrick McKay has since explained that the Amazon series will simply not try to compete, instead carving out an identity of its own. “Anyone approachingLord Of The Ringson screen would be wrong not to think about how wonderfully right [Jackson] got so much of it,” he said. “But we’re admirers from afar, that’s it. The Rings Of Power doesn’t try to compete with him.
In fact, according to director J.A. Bayona,The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerwill go even further,heading off in a direction beyond even film or television and crafting something entirely new.“The Rings Of Power is not television. It’s a new form we’re creating here,” the filmmaker said.
Whatever that means has clearly worked,with early reactions toThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerheaping praise on the return to Middle Earth. Several major Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fans were invited to a screening of some of the footage from the show, with all of them concluding that the property is in “VERY good hands.”
Starring Morfydd Clark, Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Sophia Nomvete, Charlie Vickers, Charles Edwards, and Benjamin Walker,The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Poweris scheduled to premiere on Prime Video on August 10, 2025.
