Amazon is swinging big on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, a lavishly produced new series made with enough gold to make Smaug the dragon green with envy. The show is set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, but thousands of years before Bilbo or Frodo or Aragorn or any of those guys were even born. It’s the Second Age of Middle-earth, when Sauron was on the rise as a dark lord.
There are other differences. The Lord of the Rings is set during the Third Age of Middle-earth, when the elves had mostly left and the ones who remained — like Elrond and Galadriel, who are both in The Rings of Power — were just sort of marking time. Concept artist John Howe told Empire about how things are different in The Rings of Power.
“This isn’t the Middle-earth you remember,” Howe said. “This is a world that’s very vibrant. The elves are not hidden away in Mirkwood or lingering in Rivendell. They’re busy constructing kingdoms. The dwarven kingdom of Moria is not an abandoned mine and the Grey Havens is not yet an abandoned city. I loved having the opportunity to explore that unseen history.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will sail “the oceans of Middle-earth”
We’ll also explore parts of Middle-earth we didn’t see much of in the story most of us know: the sea. “We’re finally sailing on the oceans of Middle-earth,” Howe said; apparently we’ll see lots of sea-faring elves. “They’re daunting and enterprising and are almost colonising the world. They were a lot of fun to imagine. It’s something neither Lord Of The Rings nor Hobbit movies went anywhere near.”
Howe doesn’t mention that, during this time, there were also a race of long-lived humans who dwelled on a large island called Númenor. They’re a huge part of the plot, which is another opportunity to show Lord of the Rings fans something they haven’t seen onscreen before.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Amazon Prime Video on September 2.
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