Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ series unveils new details

First-look images and story details about Amazon’s upcoming ‘Lord of the Rings’ series have been debuted via Vanity Fair. The first season of ‘The Rings of Power’, which reportedly cost a staggering $462 million, will be a story about “friendship,” “brotherhood,” and “underdogs overcoming great darkness,” according to the showrunners.

While fans already expected the series to take place during the Second Age of Middle Earth, it has now been confirmed what locations and stories audiences can expect to witness in the series. The show will reportedly explore stories “from deep within the dwarf mines of the Misty Mountains to the high politics of the elven kingdom of Lindon and the humans’ powerful, Atlantis-like island, Númenor,” leading up to the forging of the rings of power. 

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Showrunner Patric McKay says the driving question behind the production was this: “Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?”

It has been revealed that original characters from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy such as Galadriel and Elrond will make an appearance. Morfydd Clark will take on the role of young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is “angry and brash as she is clever,” while Elrond will be portrayed by Robert Aramayo, best known for playing a young Ned Stark in HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’.

The series will also feature other characters and plotlines, many of which have been created from scratch. One such story is the “forbidden” romantic relationship between a human village healer played by Nazanin Boniadi and the elf Arondi, played by Ismael Cruz Cordova.

Instead of hobbits the show will feature their ancestor species – the harfoots – with Sir Lenny Henry portraying a harfoot elder while Megan Richards and Markella Kavenagh star as two harfoots who “encounter a mysterious lost man.”

Viewers will also get a look at the dwarven city of Khazad-dum inside the Misty Mountains, where a newly-created character – dwarven princess Disa, played by Sophia Nomvete, will “broaden the notion of who lives in Middle-earth” according to Vanity Fair.

The show will also tell the tale of the elven smith Cerebrimbor, portrayed by Charles Edwards, as he hones his skill with metals and magic, eventually forging the rings of power in tandem with Lord Sauron.

The show is being led by Patrick McKay and JD Payne, who describe the series’ narrative as being all about “the forging of the rings” and will delve into the “magic, warfare and mythology” that transpires. 

However, they also added that the story won’t be turning into a ‘Game of Thrones’ type of epic. According to Vanity Fair, McKay said the goal was to “make a show for everyone, for kids who are 11, 12 and 13, even though sometimes they might have to pull the blanket up over their eyes if it’s a little too scary. We talked about the tone in Tolkien’s books. This is material that is sometimes scary – and sometimes very intense, sometimes quite political, sometimes quite sophisticated – but it’s also heartwarming and life-affirming and optimistic. It’s about friendship and it’s about brotherhood and underdogs overcoming great darkness.”

‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ premiers on September 2 on Amazon Prime Video.