A new day is dawning over Middle-earth: after years of waiting and speculation, Amazon Prime Video’s much-discussed prequel to The Lord of the Rings has arrived. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, when Elves were still reckoning with their immortality, Sauron was learning ring-craft, and ancient hobbits called harfoots roamed the land in nomadic bands.
Now that the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are finally out, we can talk about them in detail. Does the show live up to its half a billion dollar budget?
We’re going to get into everything about Episodes 1 and 2 below. There will be SPOILERS.
The Rings of Power Episode 1 review: “Shadow of the Past”
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power begins by introducing Galadriel as a child. Far removed from the imperious Elven ruler of Lothlórien who was played by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson’s films, Galadriel was a dreamer in her youth, creating little paper boats to sail down streams and being bullied by the other Elven kids.
There’s something that struck me as a little odd about this sequence. It’s an important moment for Galadriel, because it lets us see her relationship with her brother Finrod (Will Fletcher) as well as the golden land of Valinor, where the Elves lived immortally in peace before the dark lord Morgoth started a war. Both of those things are important.
But I found it odd that the Elves act far more human in The Rings of Power than the ethereal beings they are in The Lord of the Rings films or books. Which, actually, is kind of the point; these are younger Elves who don’t quite have the same handle on their immortality and are still prone to the types of flaws you’d expect of mortals. It’s a recurring theme of the show, but it does take a little getting used to.
After this opening scene, we’re thrust into the thick of things with a long montage that explains the War of Wrath, how Galadriel’s brother died during his search for Morgoth’s missing lieutenant Sauron, and how his quest to destroy Sauron has now fallen to Galadriel, centuries later. This sequence is breathtaking and firmly establishes the tone and scope of the show. I shouted out loud when a fell beast tore a giant eagle out of the sky, throwing it down onto the battling armies below, where it burst into flames. The show is littered with these types of stunning visuals.
But it’s not just the epic moments that make The Rings of Power feel cinematic. Even the smaller moments, like Galadriel arguing with her second-in-command as she leads one last sortie into the frozen wastes of the north in search of Sauron’s stronghold has a slightly more movie-like feel to it. A while back, The Rings of Power premiere director J.A. Bayona claimed that the show “is not television. It’s a new form we’re creating here.” Like most of the Internet, I scoffed at this claim — how many times have we heard from studios that their new big budget fantasy and sci-fi shows are “more like 10-hour movies” in the past few years? But after seeing The Rings of Power, it’s easy to see what Bayona meant.
Galadriel has a twisty quest in this first episode that establishes her as a flawed character stuck in her own struggles. Her soldiers mutiny against her rather than follow her further into the wastes in search of Sauron, especially after they endure a surprise snow troll attack. Rather than shame her for this, the Elven High King Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker) gives her and her entire unit the honor of being shipped back home to Valinor.
Galadriel’s horror at this supposed honor is a great touch. While just about any other Elf would be overjoyed, she still has business to attend to on Middle-earth. A lot of this conflict is conveyed through her conversations with Elrond, played by Robert Aramayo (young Ned Stark on Game of Thrones). Aramayo is fantastic as Elrond; even more than Morfydd Clark, it is so easy to see him as a younger version of the iconic Lord of the Rings character played by Hugo Weaving in the Peter Jackson movies. It’s all in the subtleties, like when he murmurs “it’s almost as though I didn’t wish to be found” to an Elven messenger without bothering to look up from his book.
In the end, Galadriel does get on the ship back to Valinor. I think the moment where the clouds part and the golden light of the Elven paradise shines through is one that will give any hardcore Tolkien fan chills. The Elves actually sing like they do in the books.
But it’s too much for Galadriel. Remembering a slightly overwrought bit of advice she got from her brother as a child in that opening sequence about needing to touch the shadow to tell where the true light is, she jumps overboard. That’s a mighty long swim back to Middle-earth, but hey, when you’re an immortal Elf those things matter a bit less, I guess.
She also jumps ship because she sees something in the sky. More on that below…
Fun times with the harfoots
If I’ve talked a lot about Galadriel and the Elves so far, it’s because they’re pretty much the main focus of the premiere episode. However, The Rings of Power is a sprawling show with an enormous cast, and we do meet a few other memorable characters in the premiere.
My personal favorite was Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), a harfoot who wants to roam beyond the confines of her tight-knit community. Nori is mischievous and kind-hearted, bringing the children of the village out to pick berries and generally rebelling against any boundaries set on her. The harfoots as a whole are a blast. Unlike the homebody hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, the harfoots have yet to settle in the Shire and wander the land as nomads. It’s a cool bit of worldbuilding that once more drives home how this is the same Middle-earth, but different.
This is also as good a place as any to mention the score by Bear McCreary. The music does a lot of heavy lifting in this show; really, it’s one of the best aspects of the entire production. McCreary’s music for the harfoots perfectly captures the fun nature of their scenes. Meanwhile, Galadriel’s music is more sweeping and epic, and the humans of the Southlands have a stringed arrangement that recalls Rohan. The music elevates the production.
Nori’s story in the premiere mostly serves to introduce her and her community. Not much changes…right up until the end, when a meteor streaks across the skies of Middle-earth. It’s seen by a bunch of characters spread across the map, from Gil-Galad to the harfoots and beyond.
As it happens, there’s a man inside the meteor who is referred to in the show as the stranger. He crashes down right beside the harfoot dwelling, where Nori finds him just before the credits roll.
A map as big as Middle-earth
There’s one other main plotline that The Rings of Power focuses on in its premiere: the Southlands. It’s here we learn more about the humans of Middle-earth. During the War of Wrath, many of them fought for the dark lord Morgoth. As such, they are policed in the Second Age by Elven warriors who keep an eye out for any signs of the darkness returning. This dynamic means that many humans are resentful of the Elves, almost viewing them as subjugators. It’s a fascinating turn.
Most of this information is conveyed through the Elven warrior Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and the human village healer Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), who have an attraction that neither can fully express. Despite solid performances from both actors, these events didn’t quite grab me the same way as the rest of the episode…at least up until the end, when we find out that the neighboring town has been destroyed by an ominous disaster. I’m sure we’ll see more of these characters and grow to enjoy them, but out of the gate it was the slow part of the episode for me.
Really, the pacing is on the whole one of the things I expect people to struggle with. “Shadow of the Past” is a slow burn, with only one real action scene over the course of over an hour of television. It works — I was never anything less than enraptured — but it does set us up for a more deliberately paced, purposeful journey.
The Bullet Points of Power
- The map overlays that introduced new locations was a nice touch which I appreciated a lot. Those maps even look to be in the style of Tolkien, who famously drew his own maps for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
- Near the end of the episode, Elrond is introduced to Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), a great Elven architect who is in need of a helper. We won’t say much about Celebrimbor here for spoilers, but suffice it to say that his name should set off bells of recognition for Silmarillion readers.
- I keep thinking about that poor cow, which clued in Arondir to the dark malevolence in the Southlands because it squirted some black goop out of its udders. Someone is getting that looked at, right?
- The ancient wargs/wolves are cool to see here, though I don’t particularly like them stalking around the harfoot camp. Leave Nori alone, wargs!
- Did you catch the Ents that saw the stranger streak across the sky? These little touches were a much appreciated.
Verdict
“Shadow of the Past” was an extremely solid start for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. It feels a bit like the show is focused more on the world of Middle-earth itself than the specific characters, but overall it did such a great job of introducing everyone, as well as the complex dynamics between races. After years of worrying that Amazon would make some horrible monstrosity of an adaptation, it is with a profound sigh of relief that I report The Rings of Power’s premiere was good enough to make me confident in the episodes to come.
But since Prime Video wants to really make sure to hook us with this premiere, it gave us not one, but two episodes of The Rings of Power to start things off. Now that we’ve talked about the first, it’s time to dig into the second.