The long wait is finally over. During today’s Super Bowl LVI, Amazon Studios officially unveiled the trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Our first impressions? This version of Middle-earth is utterly spectacular to behold, if nothing else.
There’s always been a certain degree of concern over this live-action adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved fantasy world, but Amazon has shown time and again that they’ve pulled out the big guns for this ambitious venture. The staggering $465 million budget for the first season alone is something that leaves most other productions in awe, as it’s more than many of them get in their lifetimes.
This hype-fueling trailer also goes a long way towards showing the care and passion J.D Payne and Patrick McKay have poured into their new project. The Lord of the Rings fans will undoubtedly go through it countless times over the next couple of days to excavate every tiny detail, but for now, we should take a moment to appreciate just how far the television industry has come where we can have adaptations that look as great as The Rings of Power does.
As for what we can expect, narrative-wise, the dust has settled on the War of Wrath and the Second Age of Arda has begun. The Rings of Power tells the tale of how Sauron, a lieutenant of Morgoth, creates the magic rings to subjugate the free peoples of Middle-earth, ending with the War of the Last Alliance as depicted in Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring.
The Lord of the Rings: The Ring of Powers is set for a Sep. 2 release on Amazon Prime Video.