The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – Main Teaser. Video / Amazon Prime Video
Almost 21 years after the release of the first instalment of Peter Jackson's groundbreaking Lord of the Rings film trilogy, we're about to journey back to Middle-earth.
Amazon Prime Video's The Rings Of Power has the honour of being the most expensive TV series ever made. In addition to the $US250 million ($NZD407 million) Amazon paid for the rights to JRR Tolkien's Second Age, the production budget was reportedly $US465 million ($NZD758 million).
At eight episodes, that's $US58 million per episode, so it's safe to say fans are expecting big things.
Season one will make its long-awaited debut on September 2, and the full TRoP tale will eventually unfold over approximately 50 hours across five seasons.
Here's everything you need to know before it arrives.
The broken blade appears in The Fellowship of the Ring. Photo / Supplied
Fans of the original series will remember the iconic opening prologue to Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, voiced by actor Cate Blanchett as Elvish queen Galadriel, which gave a brief but solid explanation of the events leading up to the start of that film.
It also gave us a little preview of what we're about to see play out in The Rings of Power (until the part where Gollum comes into the picture).
TROP will take us right back to the Second Age of Middle-earth, well before the events of LOTR, which unfolded in the Third Age.
The Second Age spans more than 3000 years, from the banishment of the dark lord Morgoth up until the first defeat of his servant Sauron – who we know later makes a big comeback to become the main villain in LOTR.
In fact, Sauron's demise and the ultimate end of the Second Age were shown at the start of The Fellowship Of The Ring, where Isildur cuts the One Ring off Sauron's finger during the battle where elves and men took on his dark forces.
But we digress.
That "relative peace" at the beginning of The Rings of Power is, of course, set to be short-lived, with mysterious tensions on the rise across Middle-earth.
When the story picks up, the elves have founded the great kingdom of Lindon, the dwarves are thriving and living in the underground realm of Khazad-dûm (known in LOTR as Moria), and the inhabitants of the legendary and idyllic island of Númenor – whose royals are human with elvish blood – are facing a growing rift between those pledging allegiance to the elves and others who want a more independent future.
Throughout the series, fans can expect to see the forging of the rings of power, the growing influence of Sauron, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men (and some epic battle scenes) and the legendary tale of Númenor's rise and fall.
It will be the first time these stories have ever been fleshed out.
Both the challenge and benefit of the creators choosing to focus on the Second Age is that it's probably the least-documented point in Middle-earth's timeline, which allows plenty of scope for imagination in the writers' room.
The battle for Minas Tirith in The Return of the King. Photo / Supplied
However, there were certainly limitations.
One of the showrunners, J.D. Payne, summarised their exact guidelines in an interview with Vanity Fair earlier this year.
"We have the rights solely to The Fellowship of The Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of The King, the appendices, and The Hobbit," Payne said.
"And that is it. We do not have the rights to The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth, or any of those other books."
Of course, this meant there was a huge amount of storytelling they couldn't touch – but Payne explained how they made it work.
"There's a version of everything we need for the Second Age in the books we have the rights to," he told the outlet.
"As long as we're painting within those lines and not egregiously contradicting something we don't have the rights to, there's a lot of leeway and room to dramatise and tell some of the best stories that [Tolkien] ever came up with."
The characters
While LOTR favourites like Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, etc, won't be included in The Rings of Power, there will still be some familiar faces.
It's a pretty massive cast, but here are some of the names you'll need to know.
Galadriel (played by Morfydd Clark):
The elven Lady of Lothlorien will be a major player in the new series – but she'll be a younger, less wise and not-yet-crowned version of the figure we met in the LOTR trilogy.
Clark opened up about her character's journey in a recent featurette.
"Galadriel has been on a quest for over 1000 years scouring Middle-earth searching for this elusive, undiscovered, very real evil. Ultimately, she knows this danger exists, this evil has to be stopped."
Galadriel played by Welsh actress Morfydd Clark. Photo / Prime Video
Elrond (played by Robert Aramayo):
TROP will also feature a younger version of the elf, and details his rise to prominence in the capital of Lindon. When the story begins, he's not yet an elf lord, and is instead an ambitious character of half-elven heritage with a particularly impressive family legacy.
Elrond in The Rings of Power. Photo / Prime Video
Sauron (believed to be played by Anson Boon):
It's not clear exactly how much we'll see of Sauron in person – but he'll certainly be a strong presence throughout the series, which will showcase his rise to power and obviously, his forging of the One Ring. Throughout the Second Age, he was at times known as the shape-shifter Annatar, which is who Boon is understood to be portraying.
Again harking back to the Fellowship of The Ring prologue, Isildur's significant role in the events of the Second Age and its implications for the Third has already been introduced.
Fans will remember that it's Isildur (a direct ancestor of Aragorn) who ultimately sliced the ring off Sauron's finger during the War of the Last Alliance. But instead of throwing the evil object into the fires of Mount Doom and ending Sauron's reign forever, he is corrupted by its power and decides to hold on to it instead, much to Elrond's dismay.
Ultimately, it betrays him, and he loses it in the River Anduin. It's picked up years later by a creature named Smeagol – later known as Gollum.
Isildur is betrayed by the ring. Photo / Prime Video.
In TROP, we'll learn more about Isildur's origins, as the story takes us back to his younger days living on the island of Númenor with his father Elendil (Lloyd Owen) and sister Eärien (Ema Horvath).
"You see Isildur as a young man at a crossroads, wanting to [fill] his father's shoes and become a ship's captain, but there's also something that's pulling him away from that and pulling him into this romantic view of life outside of the city," Baldry told Entertainment Weekly of his character.
"There's something new out there. There's an emptiness in him, and he's grieving his mother. He wants to find himself, and it's a beautiful story of a young man trying to find his way in life."
The legendary elf king is first mentioned in a poem recited by Samwise Gamgee in the original Lord of the Rings, called "The Fall of Gil-galad".
As the revered leader of elven realm Lindon, he plays a very significant role in The Rings of Power – and is also credited with helping to create the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.
Speaking to EW, Walker described his character as "ever-vigilant in the preservation of peace".
High King Gil-galad. Photo / Prime Video
Prince Durin IV (played by Owain Arthur):
In The Rings of Power, the dwarves are still enjoying the peak of their success and influence.
Alongside his wife Disa (Sophia Nomvete), Prince Durin IV rules over the thriving Khazad-dûm underground kingdom, which fans will remember later shows up as the destroyed Moria in Fellowship of The Ring.
Prince Durin IV. Photo / Prime Video
Arondir (played by Ismael Cruz Córdova):
The unassuming elf Arondir is one of our major heroes. The soldier, stationed in the Southlands, keeps watch over the humans who live there – and winds up embroiled in a forbidden relationship with one of them, Bronwyn (more on her below).
Bronwyn lives in the Southlands of Middle-earth with her young son Theo, and works as a healer.
Bronwyn. Photo / Prime Video
Celebrimbor (played by Charles Edwards):
Celebrimbor has a pretty crucial role in the whole thing, as he's the elf who is manipulated into forging Sauron's rings of power – which go on to become a fairly huge problem for Middle-earth.
Celebrimbor is a brilliant artisan whose reputation stretches into far-flung regions, and who later becomes chummy with the Khazad-dûm dwarves.
Celebrimbor. Photo / Prime Video
Halbrand (played by Charlie Vickers):
Halbrand is a new character created specifically for the TV series. However, we do know that the mysterious mortal castaway meets up with Galadriel and travels with her from the Sundering Seas to Númenor.
"There are a few things about Hal which are quite interesting, particularly his relationship with Galadriel," Vickers told Entertainment Weekly.
"He's coming from this place in his past where he's trying to let go of his past and move on. But in meeting her, she starts to illuminate some things in his mind and things about his past and his destiny that he maybe hadn't considered. It makes him look at things in a different way."
