We’re in peak fantasy TV time, and my is it glorious. Already this month Netflix has dropped its fantastic adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s seminal comic The Sandman, and HBO has premiered its behemoth Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon. Both of those shows have gotten a pretty great reception so far; August has been quite a month for genre TV.
Not to be outdone, today Amazon dropped a trailer for its own contender for the fantasy TV crown: the fabulously expensive Lord of the Rings prequel The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. It gives us our best look yet at the Second Age of Middle-earth, replete with orcs, elves, harfoots (hobbits), dwarves, and a less ambiguous look at that unnamed character everyone assumed was either Sauron or Eminem. Check it out:
New Rings of Power trailer teases epic journeys ahead
So what do you think? Did it get you excited? For me, I’m somewhere in the middle. Seeing more of the sweeping vistas of Middle-earth, of gatherings of Númenorean nobility, orcish hordes, prehistoric wargs and all the rest is pretty cool. This show looks gorgeous; the trailer just didn’t quite grab me by the throat enough to get me as excited as I wanted.
It is nice to get a bit more of Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, though. The Rings of Power will have a pretty large ensemble cast, but it seems like she may be the first among equals. Robert Aramayo’s Elrond also crops up a few times, and we get our longest glimpse yet at the mysterious old man who crashes to Middle-earth in a falling star. Also, did that guy at the 1:03 mark remind anyone else of Viggo Mortenson’s Aragorn from the Peter Jackson films?
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres its first two episodes Friday, September 2 on Amazon Prime Video, with new episodes following weekly after that.
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