Anna Murray: Amazon's New Lord of the Rings show starts shooting soon - does anyone care anymore?

Is anyone else struggling to get excited for even more LOTR? Because same. Photo / Supplied

I shall have to mark January 22 as the day my New Zealand citizenship will likely be revoked.

Because today is the day I publicly admit to a treasonous act: I just can't get excited about the forthcoming Lord of the Rings TV series.

JRR Tolkien's series of books has been a part of our national fabric ever since director Sir Peter Jackson began planning his trilogy of film adaptations in the mid-90s. And I was on board with it all for such a long time.

Kiwis (myself included) lost their collective minds as a bevy of famous actors descended on the country to make those movies. It was really, truly exciting. And when Jackson and his team smashed those films out of the park in the early 2000s, with box office takings in the billions and multiple Academy Awards, the pride was intense.

That Middle-Earth lustre wore off somewhat when The Hobbit trilogy was later released. I still went along to those films, because I'm from New Zealand and it was my civic duty to do so, but I won't pretend they were as good as the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

And now, with Amazon about to begin the filming of their $1.3 billion Lord of the Rings TV adaptation, I also won't pretend to be enthused about its existence.

I am, of course, stoked for the local industry that the world's most expensive TV series is being filmed in New Zealand, even if there have been some concerns as to how the current facilities will be able to cope.

I'm also pleased those of us with "wonderful noses", "character faces", heavily wrinkled skin and no teeth are once again in with a shot at being orc extras during filming.

And I know what this likely means for New Zealand's tourism opportunities, given so many of the locations of the Lord of the Rings films are still doing a brisk trade from that exposure. I don't know if there will ever be a time when there won't be people lining up for the bus to Hobbiton in Matamata.

But from a pure entertainment perspective, it's hard to get excited about another take on the Lord of the Rings, especially on the small screen.

Given the Hobbit films only wrapped up in our cinemas around five years ago, it doesn't feel like we've been away from Middle-Earth long enough to really appreciate what's now coming down the line.

Such sentiments were shared among the films' original cast when news of Amazon's Lord of the Rings plans were first announced back in 2017, with some actors cautiously optimistic about the TV show and others ... not so much.

Actor John Rhys-Davies, who played the dwarf Gimli in the movies, told Den of Geek, "Why we quite need Lord of the Rings as a TV series baffles me slightly."

He added that the show was "not about doing it better, it's about making more money, that's all".

Andy Serkis, responsible for all those Gollum references we had to endure long after the Rings movies wrapped up, was more positive when asked about the TV show.

"If I was anyone making [the series], they're obviously going to want to start fresh and create something brand new," he told CinemaBlend. "And that's how it should be. That's what you do with great, classic pieces of work."

Thankfully, Amazon is doing exactly that with their TV series. Rather than rehashing the same Lord of the Rings storylines followed in the movies, the show will focus on the Second Age in Middle-Earth, with events prior to Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring taking this new spotlight.

But even if they are covering different ground, the shadow of Jackson's beloved films (and The Hobbit) still looms so large. It's going to be hard to shake this current feeling of Middle-Earth saturation given how much the work has dominated our media landscape for the past 20 years.

But I best try and work up some enthusiasm for this new project soon. Because with this latest journey to Middle-Earth being slated for five whole seasons on Amazon, there's only going to be one show hoping to rule them all around here for the foreseeable future.